GREAT 
MUSICIANS 


ERNEST 
OLDMEADOW 


XlsBlltllBYN 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OP 
V    CALIFORMIA 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

GIFT  OF 


Lucy  E.  French 
1969 


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BOOKS£l->-E5S*lTAT10NERS 

26  S.  28TREM0NTST& 
I    S,n  rAii3T  <;n  BOSTON 


GREAT   MUSICIANS 


FORM    WITH    THIS    VOLUME 

GREAT  ENGLISH 
POETS 

JULIAN   HILL 

WITH  THIRTY-TWO  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Ceokge   W.   Jacobs   &   Co. 

PHILADELPHIA 


The  Boyhood  of  Luli.y. 

Afcer  Uip/>olytc  de  la  Charurie. 


GREAT    MUSICIANS 


BV 

ERNEST    OLDMEADOW 

AUTHOR    OF    "  CHOPIN,"    "  SCHUMANN,"    ETC. 


WITH    THIRTY-TWO    FULL-PAGE    ILLUSTRATIONS 


PHILADELPHIA 
GEORGE   W.  JACOBS   &    CO. 


PUBLISHERS 


MUSIC  LIB. 


PRINTED   IN    ENGLAND    BY   W.    ERENDON    AND   SON,    LTD.,    PLYMOUTH,    IC 


CONTENTS 


AIL  310 


MUSfC 


The  Great  Unknown  . 

17 

The  Unceasing  Chant 

34 

Orlandus  Lassus 

55 

Palestrina 

74 

Monteverde    . 

113 

LULLV 

137 

Rameau 

165 

PURCELL 

194 

Handel 

228 

Bach 

272 

571 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Boyhood  of  Lully         .  .  .    Frontispiece 

After  Hippolyte  de  la  Charhrie 

FACING   PAGE 

"All  Kinds  of  Musick  "        .  .  .  .        20 

(Early  XVItk  Century) 

"Music"  .  .  ...       30 

From  "  Les  Echecs  Amoureux  "  (XVItk  Century) 

Saint  Cecilia  .  .  .  .  .        38 

After  Raphael 

Saint  Cecilia  .  .  ...       44 

After  Mignard 

Adrien  Willaert's  Mass       .  .  .  .        58 

After  Edivard  Hamman 

A  "Maitrise"       .  .  ...       62 

After  Daivant 

King  Solomon  .  .  ...        70 

After  De  Vos 

Palestrina  and  Pope  Julius  III  .  .  .82 

Frcm  the  Title-page  cf  Palestrina' s  First  Book  of  Masses 

The  Sacred  Council  of  Trent  .  .  .       98 

After  Titian 

The  Family  of  Bassano         .  .  .104 

After  Jacopo  Bassano 

Orpheus  and  the  Beasts  .  .         ^118 

From  an  old  print 


8 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Orpheus  before  Pluto 

From  an  old  print 

Teniers  and  his   Family 

After  Teniers  the  7'ounger 

LULLY       .  .  .  . 

j4fter  Edelinc^ 

QuiNAULT 

ylfter  Dubasty 

LuLLY    AND    HIS    COLLEAGUES       . 
After  Rigaud 

The  Obsequies  of  Seguier     . 

After  Le  Brun 

Rameau 

From  a  lithograpk 

The  Concert 

After  Vanloo 

The  Origin  of  the  OptRA  Comique 

After  B.  Picart 

Frontispiece  of  Rousseau's  Dictionary 

After  C.  N.  Cochin,  f  Is 

Purcell 

From  an  engrai'ing 

A  Lady  Playing  . 

After  Terhorch 

The  Lute-player  . 

After  Franz  Hals 

Handel  .  .  .  . 

After  Thomson's  engra-ving 

Handel  and  King  George  I 

After  Edivard  Hamman 


FACING    PAGE 
122 


126 

.  138 

.  148 

•  J  5  + 

.  158 

.  166 

•  17+ 


196 
202 
214. 

230 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  9 

FACING    PAGE 

The  Handel  Statue  in  Vauxhall  Gardens     .  .      264 

After  Bartoloi^zi's  Engraz'ing 

Eisenach  and  the  Wartburg  .  .  •     272 

From  an  old  print 

Weimar  .  .  ...      280 

From  an  oU  print 

John  Sebastian  Bach  .  ...      286 

After  E.  Gottlieb  Hausmann 

Morning  Devotions  in  the  Family  of  Bach     .  .      290 

After  Tohy  Rosenthal 


PREFACE 

n^HE  following  short  studies  of  Great  Musicians 
are  published  as  a  companion  volume  to  Mr. 
Julian  Hilfs  "  Great  English  PoetsT  Other  volumes 
in  the  same  Series  are  being  prepared.  The  aim  is  to 
provide  general  readers  with  little  histories  of  the  arts 
expressed  through  little  biographies  of  the  greatest 
artists.  For  example^  each  of  the  studies  in  the 
present  volume  is  complete  in  itself:  yet  the  reader 
who  begins  at  the  first  page  and  continues  to  the  last 
will  perceive  that  he  has  been  following  the  general 
trend  of  Music  down  to  the  death  of  Handel^  as  well 
as  the  fortunes  of  particular  musicians. 

Keeping  always  in  mind  the  fact  that  he  is  writing 
for  general  readers^  the  Author  has  not  hesitated  to 
explain  certain  technical  points  in  popular  language. 
-  Should  any  well-instructed  musicians  {for  whom  this 
book  is  not  primarily  intended^  find  such  passages 
tiresome^  they  may  reflect  that  it  is  better  for  the  few 
to  be  bored  than  for  the  many  to  be  bewildered.     Nor 


12  PREFACE 

need  the  general  reader  himself  feel  that  these  explana- 
tions are  disrespectful  to  bis  knowledge  and  intelligence. 
When  so  many  of  our  most  acceptable  novelists,  essay- 
ists., and  political  orators  habitually  misuse  rudimentary 
musical  terms.,  it  is  reasonable  to  assume  that  a  little 
light  is  needed  on  such  dark  sayings  as  "  the  super- 
session of  the  ternary  by  the  binary  notation^'  or 
"  homophonic  effects  in  a  polyphonic  context^ 

As  they  may  appear  at  first  sight  to  lie  outside  the 
four  corners  of  this  book's  title,  a  word  must  be  said 
respecting  the  opening  chapters.      The  chapter  headed 
"  The  Great  Unknown  "  not  only  serves  as  an  intro- 
duction to  the  whole  subject  but  also  deals  with  a 
question  often  put  and  seldom  answered.     The  second 
chapter  is  justified  both  by  the  immense  increase  of 
interest  in  the  ancient  chant  and  by  the  slowly  emerging 
fact  that  this  rich  treasury  has  furnished  materials 
for  later  music  as  abundantly  as  the  Rome   of  the 
Emperors  furnished   marbles  for  the   Rome   of  the 
Renaissance  Popes. 

In  owning  his  great  indebtedness  to  various  works 
of  reference.,  the  Author  could  wish  that  the  debt  had 
been  far  greater.  He  cannot  hope  that  even  these 
short  and  popular  studies  are  free  from  errors :  for 


PREFACE  13 

inaccuracy  seems  to  trail  all  o'ver  the  literature  of  the 
subject.  WitKm  recent  years  a  vast  amount  of 
splendid  vjork  has  been  done  by  critics  and  historians 
of  music  in  England ;  but^  up  to  the  present^  the 
results  are  so  imperfectly  co-ordinated  that  one  cannot 
rely  upon  any  of  the  musical  histories  and  dictionaries 
with  an  easy  mind.  For  example^  Mr.  W.  H. 
Hadows  "  Oxford  History  of  Music  "  contains  hun- 
dreds of  pages  of  the  greatest  value^  but  there  are  too 
many  important  'matters  {such  as  the  chronology  of 
PurcelFs  works  for  the  theatre)  in  'which  no  attempt 
appears  to  have  been  made  to  correct  hoary  and  most 
misleading  en-ors  in  the  light  of  modern  researches. 
Again^  the  "  Oxford  History "  is  avowedly  only  a 
supplement^  for  the  use  of  advanced  musicians^  to  the 
histories  of  music  on  a  mainly  biographical  plan  ;  but 
when  one  seeks  for  such  histories  in  English  one  finds 
practically  nothing  on  a  grand  scale  save  an  enlarged 
version  of  Naumann^  which^  though  admirable  in p arts ^ 
is  disfigured  by  hundreds  of  inaccuracies  and  by  scores 
of  perverse  judgments.  Turning  from  the  histories 
to  the  dictionaries^  one  is  heartily^  but  not  unreservedly^ 
thankful  for  the  invaluable  '■^  Grove"  so  lately  revised 
under  the  direction  of  Mr.  J.  A.  Fuller-Maitland. 


14  PREFACE 

To  be  querulous  over  so  serviceable  a  wor\  may  seem 
ungracious^  and  yet  one  cannot  help  regretting  that, 
instead  of  attempting  to  mend  some  of  the  old  articles, 
the  Editor  has  not  replaced  them  by  new  ones.  For 
instance,  the  article  on  Palestrina,  in  Volume  III, 
lags  years  behind  the  latest  results  of  Palestrina 
scholarship,  while  the  sentence  added,  in  square 
brackets,  respecting  Palestrina  s  second  marriage,  is  so 
placed  as  to  suggest  {unintentionally,  no  doubt)  a  joke 
in  very  poor  taste. 

Unaccredited  anecdotes  which  blur  the  true  char- 
acter of  the  musicians  discussed  have  been  either 
excluded  from  this  book  or  recounted  with  reservations. 
But  it  will  be  seen  that  the  Author  has  dissented  from 
the  principle  of  throwing  aside  every  tradition  which 
is  not  supported  by  existing  documents.  The  documents 
which  have  survived  are  as  dust  in  the  balance  com- 
pared with  those  which  have  perished  since  many 
traditions  first  became  fixed.  Recent  years  have 
seen  the  too  rapid  growth  of  an  unsound  practice  of 
proclaiming  this  or  that  tradition  to  have  been  "  dis- 
posed of  once  for  alV  by  the  discovery  of  some  single 
document  which  may  have  been  written  at  second-hand 
or  by  some  one  with  a  remote  and  partial  knowledge 


PREFACE  15 

of  the  matter.  Hence  some  recent  biographies  of 
mtisicians  are  as  bald  as  a  prairie  after  a  fire.  Tet 
new  documents  support  old  tradition  abnost  as  often  as 
they  'weaken  it,  and,  like  reeds  which  gales  have  bent 
and  floods  have  drowned  right  out  of  sight,  many  a 
scorned  old  tale  is  destined  to  hold  up  its  head  once 
more  to  the  sun. 

In  his  study  of  Palestrina  the  Author  has  tried  to 
hold  the  balance  true.  He  believes  that  so  accurate 
an  account  of  Palestrina  s  life  has  not  hitherto  been 
printed  in  England,  and  yet  he  cannot  give  it  the 
final  up-to-date  touch  by  maintaining  that  the  much- 
abused  Baini  was  a  spinner  of  fairy-tales.  Two 
or  three  twentieth -century  writers  have  deliberately 
ascribed  the  story  of  the  "  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus  " 
to  Baini' s  imagination  ;  but  since  passing  these  sheets 
through  the  press,  the  Author  has  chanced  to  find  in  the 
pages  of  Dr.  Burney  {whose  work  was  not  at  hand 
in  the  first  instance)  the  definite  tradition  of  Pales- 
trina's  having  saved  polyphonic  jnusic  by  means  of 
this  Mass  {Burney  s  ^^  History,''  Vol.  HI,  pp. 
189-190).  Burney  heard  the  story  in  Italy  before 
Baini  was  born. 

Most  of  the  thirty-two  plates  which  are  scattered 


i6  PREFACE 

through  this  volume  directly  illustrate  points  in  the 
letterpress.  Many  of  them^  such  as  Rigaud's  fine 
picture  of  the  musicians  of  Louis  XIV^  have  been 
photographed  expressly  for  these  pages.  This  remark 
also  applies  to  the  title-page  of  Pales trinds  "  First 
Boo]^  of  M.asses^''  which  has  hitherto  been  rather 
unhandsomely  treated  by  the  cutting  out  of  everything 
save  the  composer  s  head  and  shoulders^  thus  making 
the  kneeling  Palestrina  resemble  a  standing  hunch- 
back. As  for  the  remaining  plates^  these  have  been 
copied  from  the  ivor\s  of  celebrated  painters  to 
illustrate  the  spirit  rather  than  the  letter  of  the  text. 
They  are  pleasing  in  themselves^  and  they  will  also 
serve  to  fill  up  in  the  reader  s  mind  that  background  of 
general  European  culture  without  which  the  music  of 
the  period  cannot  fully  be  understood. 

St.  Margaret's-on-Thames, 
November,   1907. 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN 

tpOR  nine  Anglo-Saxons  out  of  ten  Music  is 
hardly  two  centuries  old.  They  know  Pur- 
cell's  Full  Fathom  Five^  and  they  have  heard  of 
Palestrina.  But  in  tracking  the  bright  flood  of 
Music  backwards  to  its  source,  they  halt  at  the 
resounding  gorge  where  Bach  and  Handel  stand 
like  two  proud  castles,  or  like  two  humming 
cities  on  two  bold  hills,  facing  each  other  across 
the  racing  water.  They  believe  that  at  Handel- 
berg  and  Bachstein  the  navigation  ends,  and  that, 
after  passing  a  beauty-spot  or  two  here  and  there, 
the  intrepid  explorers  who  push  their  canoes 
through  the  upper  waters  will  soon  find  them- 
selves floundering  in  a  dismal  swamp,  amidst 
the  screamings  and  gruntings  and  hissings  and 
growlings  of  those  strange  birds  and  beasts,  the 
mediaeval  composers. 

Some  recent  writers  of  popular  books  on  music 
and  musicians  have  made  praiseworthy  attempts 
B  17 


1 8  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

to  extend  this  too  narrow  field  of  survey.  But, 
unhappily,  they  have  tried  to  stretch  it  out  at 
the  wrong  end.  Anxious  to  be  down  to  date, 
not  only  have  they  reckoned  among  the  classics 
of  music  many  works  of  lately-dead  composers 
whose  durability  is  uncertain,  but  they  have  even 
canonized  two  or  three  living  writers  against 
whom  the  devil's  advocate  has  some  weighty 
things  to  say.  In  other  words,  they  have  sought 
more  elbow-room  by  annexing  what  may  prove  to 
be  quicksands  just  ahead,  while  all  the  time  they 
are  neglecting  wide  tracts  of  solid  rock  in  the 
Hinterland. 

The  time  has  come  for  a  popular  discovery  of 
the  music  made  between  the  birth  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  the  death  of  Queen  Anne.  Such 
a  discovery  would  do  much  more  than  reward 
the  searchers  with  a  vast  hoard  of  sterling  trea- 
sure. It  would  act  strongly  on  our  musical  con- 
sciousness. The  two  hundred  years  last  past  have 
been  years  of  eclipse  for  English  musicians  and 
years  of  glory  for  Germans  and  Italians  and 
Frenchmen  ;  but  the  two  hundred  years  im- 
mediately preceding  the  Georgian  age  were  years 
in  which  English  composers  could  hold  their  own 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN  19 

against  all  comers.  To  preoccupy  the  national 
mind,  as  so  many  popular  writers  have  done, 
almost  exclusively  with  the  two  un-English  cen- 
turies in  the  musical  past,  is  not  the  best  way  of 
raising  up  an  English  genius  in  the  musical 
future. 

Broadly  speaking,  it  is  time  to  multiply  by  two 
the  years  which  are  commonly  supposed  to  have 
produced  interesting  and  hearable  music  in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  term.  No  doubt  musical 
antiquaries  may  profitably  go  back  two  thousand 
years  to  the  palmy  days  of  the  Greek  theatre  ; 
but  simple  lovers  of  music  for  music's  own  sake 
will  hardly  find  it  worth  their  while  to  add  more 
than  two  centuries  to  the  two  which  have  passed 
since  Handel  wrote  his  first  operas  and  Bach  his 
first  cantatas.  It  is  true  that  treasurable  songs 
were  sung  by  troubadours  and  minnesingers  five 
hundred  years  before  Bach  was  born  ;  and  it  is 
also  true  that  at  least  one  sunny  and  breezy  part- 
sone  was  written  in  England  while  the  ink  was 
Still  fresh  on  Magna  Charta.  Again,  it  is  true 
that  the  activity  of  the  early  contrapuntal  writers 
was  so  great  that  the  learned  Belgian  Cousse- 
maker  was  able,  as  recently  as  forty  years  ago,  to 


20  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

deal  with  at  least  five  hundred  composers  whose 
very  names  had  been  forgotten  until  he  revived 
them  in  his  work  on  Harmony  in  the  TvjeJfth 
and  Thirteenth  Centuries.  But  almost  all  these 
remains  of  the  Middle  Ages  are  uncertain  of 
interpretation,  and,  apart  from  their  historical  im- 
portance, a  very  thin  volume  would  suffice  to  con- 
tain everything  in  them  that  is  worth  preserving 
on  purely  artistic  grounds.  In  short,  the  plain 
lover  of  music  will  lose  little  by  ranging  back  no 
further  than  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury.^ The  only  large  exception  to  this  rough 
rule  is  certain  Church  music,  some  of  which  was 
a  thousand  years  old  when  the  sixteenth  century 
began.  But  this  exception  is  more  apparent  than, 
real  ;  for  her  solemn  and  beautiful  chant,  like 
the  Church  herself,  stands  clear  of  mere  dates, 
and  belongs  as  much  to  our  own  day  as  to  any 
night  or  day  since  St.  Augustine  at  Milan  heard 
it  with  a  breaking  heart. 

Readers  who  carry  in  their  memories  the 
general  chronology  of  art  will  not  be  disposed  to 

1  In  the  first  edition  of  Grove's  Dictionary  of  Music  and  Musicians  the 
year  1450  a.d.  was  taken  as  the  starting-point.  This  date  was  a  great  deal 
too  late  for  thorough-going  students  and  a  little  too  early  for  general  music- 
lovers. 


"All  kinds  of  Musick." 

{Early  XVIth  Century.) 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN  21 

accept  what  has  just  been  said  without  some 
further  explanation.  At  first  sight  this  drawing 
of  the  line  at  or  about  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century  must  strike  such  readers  as 
arbitrary.  They  know  that,  for  generations 
before  the  fifteenth  century  drew  to  a  close, 
music's  sister  arts  were  flourishing.  They  know 
that  the  master-builders  of  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries  had  poised  the  carven  vaults 
of  the  Gothic  cathedrals  with  so  much  feeling  and 
skill  and  daring  that  the  architects  of  to-day 
cannot  copy  them,  much  less  surpass  them. 
They  know  that  such  painters  as  Memling,  and 
the  Van  Eycks  and  Fra  Angelico  and  Mantegna 
had  lived  and  died,  leaving  behind  them  a 
hundred  works  at  which  we  can  still  look  with 
wonder  and  delight.  Accordingly,  they  are 
haunted  by  the  notion  that  a  man  with  ears  to 
hear  ought  to  be  able  to  find  in  the  late  Middle 
Ages  and  the  early  Renaissance  great  and  beauti- 
ful music  to  keep  company  with  the  great  and 
beautiful  mediaeval  buildings  and  the  great  and 
beautiful  Renaissance  pictures. 

A    little    reflection,    however,   will   show    that 
music  is  not  on  the  same  footing  with  the  other 


22  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

arts.  When  a  painter  has  a  vision  of  beauty  or 
a  decorative  impulse,  he  can  express  himself  by- 
arranging  so  many  ounces  of  pigments  on  a  yard 
of  canvas,  or  on  a  panel  of  wood,  or  on  a  plastered 
wall.  When  an  architect  conceives  some  grand 
display  of  mass  and  form  and  light  and  shade, 
he  can  materialize  his  idea  for  posterity  by 
shaping  and  joining  so  many  tons  of  stone. 
But  the  musician's  is  a  different  case.  Unless 
his  ideas  are  to  die  with  him,  he  must  find  some 
way  of  recording  the  sounds  which  would  other- 
wise die  upon  the  air  without  hope  of  resurrec- 
tion. In  one  sense  his  songs  are  material  ;  for, 
as  men  of  science  have  proved,  music  is  the 
atmosphere  in  vibration,  and  it  would  be  possible 
to  express  the  Holy  Grail  theme  in  Lohengrin 
by  an  ugly  row  of  arithmetical  symbols.  But 
although  music  has  its  material,  the  musician 
cannot  get  into  direct  and  permanent  contact  with 
this  material,  and  is  therefore  unlike  the  sculptor 
and  the  painter.  When  one  sees  the  Pieta  of 
Michael  Angelo,  or  the  upper  part  of  the  Trans- 
figuration of  Raphael,  one  can  truthfully  say, 
"Here  is  the  very  stone  Michael  Angelo  chiselled," 
or   "Here  are    the   very  pigments  Raphael   laid 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN  23 

with  his  brush."  But  when  one  hears  Beethoven's 
ISinth  Symphony^  one  knows  that  with  the  particu- 
lar material  vehicle  of  the  performance  —  the 
yards  of  catgut,  the  half-hundredweight  of  sound- 
ing brass,  the  wood,  the  parchment,  the  iron,  the 
silver — Beethoven  had  nothing  to  do.  For  the 
most  part  the  instruments  have  been  built  up 
from  trees  that  had  not  been  planted  when  he 
died,  from  mines  that  had  not  been  opened,  from 
beasts  that  had  not  been  born.  In  fact, 
Beethoven's  part  in  the  affair  is  represented  by 
no  more  than  a  faint  tradition  and  some  printed 
copies  of  a  MS.  in  which  he  appointed  their  roles 
to  unborn  drummers,  trumpeters,  fiddlers,  and 
pipers.  It  is  as  though  Michael  Angelo,  instead  of 
leaving  solid  marble  behind  him,  had  left  a 
complicated  table  of  superfine  measurements  by 
which  generation  after  generation  of  sculptors 
could  reproduce  the  Pieta^  time  after  time,  in 
snow.  It  is  as  though  Raphael  had  merely  handed 
down  subtle  directions  for  executing  the  Trans- 
figuration in  coloured  sand.  The  first  hot  sun 
would  melt  the  snow,  the  first  strong  wind  would 
blow  the  sand  away,  thus  making  the  analogy 
with  a  Beethoven  symphony  complete  ;  for,  even 


24  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

while  one  is  wondering  at  them,  sweet  sounds 
lapse  back  into  nothingness  like  a  rainbow  fading 
from  before  one's  eyes. 

Familiarity  dulls  curiosity.  We  are  so  thoroughly 
accustomed  to  the  marvel  that  few  of  us  recog- 
nize in  a  fine  performance  of  a  musical  classic 
one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of  mind  over 
matter.  In  a  big  finale,  when  the  full  orchestra 
is  playing  at  full  speed,  the  band-parts  contain 
some  thousands  of  printed  notes  for  each  minute 
of  the  performance.  As  several  melodies  and 
rhythms  may  be  going  at  once,  and  as  the  whole 
procession  of  sounds  is  lit  and  warmed  by  ever- 
shifting  beams  of  instrumental  colours,  it  is 
essential  that  each  bandsman's  doings  should  be 
prescribed  for  him  down  to  a  fraction  of  a 
second.  Yet  musical  notation  has  been  brought 
to  such  perfection  that  the  works  of  composers 
who  have  been  a  hundred  years  dead  or  are  a 
thousand  miles  away  can  be  performed  in  almost 
complete  accordance  with  their  authors'  inten- 
tions. 

But  this  immense  achievement  of  the  Western 
intellect  was  not  compassed  in  a  day.  It  was 
consummated  only  after  centuries  of  effort  and 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN  25 

after  innumerable  blunderings  and  wrong  turn- 
ings. Only  with  the  passing  of  the  fifteenth 
century  did  the  pioneers  of  modern  music  find 
firm  ground  whereon  to  build.  They  lagged 
behind  the  architects  and  the  painters  simply 
because  they  had  a  darker  and  more  bewildering 
road  to  travel. 

While  the  builders  were  building  and  the 
painters  were  painting,  the  musicians  were  spend- 
ing their  lives  in  theorizing  and  speculating. 
Their  attempts  to  write  their  music  down  on 
paper  made  it  necessary  that  they  should  be 
agreed  on  the  main  points  of  musical  grammar. 
Given  some  particular  sequence  or  combination 
of  sounds,  they  paused  to  inquire  whether  it 
was  grammatical  or  not.  Unhappily,  this  state  of 
mind  led  many  of  them  into  an  error  which  has 
cursed  music  ever  since.  Instead  of  humbly 
deducing  a  musical  grammar  from  the  freely- 
invented  musical  literature,  they  set  about  con- 
cocting a  musical  literature  to  exemplify  the 
musical  grammar.  They  did  not  understand 
that  the  so-called  "  laws  "  of  art  are  no  more  than 
analyses  of  art's  accomplished  facts.  Homer, 
who    could    neither    read    nor    write,    did    not 


26  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

conform  his  epic  to  the  "  laws "  of  the  hexa- 
meter ;  on  the  contrary,  the  "  laws "  of  the 
hexameter  were  humbly  spelt  out  from  the 
practice  of  Homer  and  other  poets  after  the 
event.  The  judge  of  music  is  the  ear,  reporting 
to  the  heart  and  mind  ;  even  as  the  judge  of 
architecture  and  sculpture  and  painting  is  the  eye. 
Rules  are  for  apprentices,  not  for  masters.^  But 
ever  since  the  study  of  music  began,  pedants 
have  tutored  and  governed  it  according  to  books 
instead  of  according  to  nature.  In  China,  music 
came  to  a  standstill  because  it  passed  under  such 
complete  State  supervision  that  the  laws  of  com- 
position became  binding  statutes  of  the  Heavenly 
Empire,  of  the  familiar  "  obey  and  tremble " 
order.  And  mandarins  have  never  been  lacking 
in  Europe  to  stand  over  music  with  their 
peremptory  "  Thus  far  and   no  further." 

It  is  easy  to  give  an  illustration  by  which  any 
reader  who  has  even  the  slightest  knowledge 
of  notation  will  understand  how  the  progress  of 
musical   art   has    been    retarded   by   the    rigours 

^  Of  course  musical  rules  are  entitled  to  a  large  measure  of  respect 
when  they  are  grounded  in  the  facts  of  nature.  See  the  chapter  on 
Rameau  in  the  present  volume.  Rameau's  physical  discoveries,  however, 
only  endorsed  what  was  being  discovered  by  the  artistic  sense  of  musicians. 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN  27 

of  musical  theory.  Let  him  go  to  the  piano 
and  strike  together  middle  C  and  the  C  above. 
This,  of  course,  is  the  octave.  Again,  let  him 
strike  together  C  and  the  fifth  key  above  it,  G. 
Last  of  all,  let  him  strike  C  along  with  the  third 
key  above  it,  E.  Of  these  combinations  his  ear 
will  derive  most  pleasure  from  C  and  E — the 
major  third.  Parallel  thirds  move  as  pleasantly 
as  two  lovers  faring  arm-in-arm  along  a  flowery 
lane  ;  but  parallel  fifths  are  like  the  lovers  sulk- 
ing home  on  opposite  sides  of  the  high  road 
after  they  have  quarrelled.  Yet  it  was  not  until 
the  eleventh  century  that  the  combination  with 
the  third  ceased  to  be  forbidden  or  discouraged 
as  a  dissonance,  and  not  until  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  did  any  one  muster  courage  to  write 
a  number  of  thirds  consecutively,  although  such 
passages  are  almost  the  commonest  in  the 
popular  music  of  our  own  day.  The  octave 
and  the  fifth  were  allowed  ;  the  third  was  for- 
bidden. Let  the  reader  sit  down  at  the  piano 
and  play  some  simple  piece  in  two  or  three  or 
four  parts,  steadily  excluding  thirds,  and  he  will 
perceive  that  this  disability  alone  was  sufficient 
to  put  any  satisfactory  harmony  and  counterpoint 


28  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

out   of   the   question    until   it   was   removed    by- 
Franco  of  Cologne. 

This  unnatural  tyranny  seems  to  have  arisen 
far  back  in  misty  antiquity  through  the  system 
of  tuning  invented  by  Pythagoras.  Along  a 
square  box  Pythagoras  stretched  a  single  string, 
with  movable  bridges.  He  found  that  a  string 
shortened  by  one-half  sounded  its  octave  ;  that, 
shortened  by  two-thirds,  it  sounded  its  fifth  ; 
and  that,  shortened  by  three-quarters,  it  gave  its 
fourth.  In  other  words,  he  declared  that  the 
ratio  of  the  keynote  to  its  octave  was  as  i  :  2  ; 
to  its  fifth  as  2  :  3  ;  and  to  its  fourth  as  3  :  4. 
Because  of  the  beautifully  simple  progression  of 
these  numbers  he  decided  that  these  three 
combinations  were  the  three  perfect  musical 
concords.  When,  however,  he  calculated  the 
ratio  of  the  keynote  to  its  third,  he  worked  it 
out  as  81  :  64,  and  accordingly  dubbed  the  third 
a  discord.  No  doubt  81  :  64  has  a  formidable 
look  at  first  sight.  But,  even  granting  that 
Pythagoras  was  right  in  his  measurement,  the 
ratio  was  not  as  bad  as  it  seemed.  For  practical 
purposes,  81  :  64  is  the  same  as  5  :  4,  and 
therefore  the  third  deserved  a  place  among  the 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN  29 

sheep.  But  Pythagoras  drove  it  out  among  the 
goats  to  wander,  like  a  scapegoat  with  a  curse 
upon  its  head,  by  the  Dead  Sea  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years. 

It  is  possible  that  the  reader,  still  sitting  at  his 
piano,  will  wonder  why  no  inquisitive  musician 
found  out  the  tolerability  and  beauty  of  the  third 
in  the  course  of  extemporizing  on  some  instru- 
ment. But  it  must  be  remembered  that  no 
instrument  has  ever  been  ahead  of  the  work  it 
had  to  do  and  the  ideas  it  had  to  express.^  Rude 
and  stammering  music  was  played  on  rude  and 
stammering  instruments.  One  must  no  more 
believe  in  the  musical  instruments  one  sees  in 
paintings  of  early  saints  than  one  must  believe 
in  the  clock  which  Shakespeare  has  put  into  Julius 
C^sar.  For  example,  there  is  the  too  famous 
picture  of  St.  Cecilia  by  Carlo  Dolce  at  Dresden. 
The  virgin  martyr  suffered  death  in  the  second 
century  of  our  era  ;  yet  Carlo  Dolce  has  por- 
trayed her  playing  in  four-part  harmony  on  a 
chamber-organ  of  the   seventeenth.     The   truth 

'  The  violin  is  the  most  striking  case  in  point.  The  evidence  goes  to 
show  that  it  was  reseired  for  the  great  executants  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury to  perform  the  best  violin-music  of  the  eighteenth  according  to  the 
composers'  intentions. 


30  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

is  that,  on  most  early  organs,  the  executant  could 
play  only  one  note  at  a  time.  In  some  of  them 
each  key  was  over  a  yard  square,  and  could  only 
be  put  down  with  the  whole  hand.  Harmonic 
combinations  were  therefore  unplayable.^  But, 
over  and  above  all  such  small  points,  the  third 
languished  for  centuries  in  exile  chiefly  because 
musicians  took  it  for  granted  that  they  must  get 
music  out  of  the  rules  instead  of  getting  rules 
out  of  the  music. 

What  most  tantalizes  the  inquirer  as   he  tries 

^  Portable  and  easily  played  organs  were  made  at  a  very  early  date.  But 
nobody  seems  to  have  made  harmonic  experiments  upon  them.  Such  organs 
seem  to  have  served  the  same  purpose  as  the  monstrous  brass  instruments 
which  occasionally  accompany  religious  processions  in  Latin  countries. 
That  is  to  say,  the  organs  merely  uttered  a  sequence  of  single  notes 
in  unison  with  the  sacred  chant. 

That  harmonic  effects  should  not  have  been  stumbled  upon  earliir 
is  certainly  puzzling.  Indeed,  some  writers,  flying  in  the  face  of  the 
evidence,  have  boldly  asserted  ihat  rich  instrumental  chords  supported 
the  ancient  vocal  music.  But  btyond  the  fact  that  the  Greeks  "magadized," 
or  played  the  lyre  in  octaves,  all  research  points  the  other  way. 

Unlike  the  stage  Minnesingers  in  Tannhciuser,  the  knightly  minstrels 
of  Provence  thought  it  beneath  their  dignity  to  harp  upon  their  own  harps, 
and  instrumental  music  generally  was  left  to  inferiors,  thus  retarding 
its  natural  influence  upon  harmony.  But,  puzzling  or  not,  the  late 
emergence  of  instrumental  harmony  remains  a  fact.  Perhaps  it  is  not, 
after  all,  much  more  puzzling  than  the  late  discovery  of  the  laws  of 
perspective  (as  illustrated  by  the  Van  Eycks'  altar-piece  at  Ghent,  which 
recedes  towards  two  horizons),  or  than  the  lateness  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  discovery  that  scarlet-runners  produced  good  pods  and  beans  to  eat 
as  well  as  handsome  flowers  and  leaves  to  look  at. 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN  31 

to  retrace  the  road  by  which  music  has  reached  its 
present  position  is  the  frequency  with  which  the 
theorists  have  ahiiost  found  the  right  track  only 
to  turn  aside  into  some  blind  alley.  Pythagoras 
with  his  tuning-machine  is  typical  of  his  suc- 
cessors. The  Greeks  who  followed  him,  with 
their  unbounded  musical  enthusiasm  and  fine 
musical  sense,  reached  the  threshold  of  great 
discoveries  ;  but,  like  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  a  com- 
plicated doctrine  of  enharmonic  scales  lured  them 
back  to  blunder  in  the  dark.  Again,  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  theorists  actually  drew  near  to 
our  modern  notation  with  its  system  of  dividing 
the  notes  by  two — the  breve  into  two  semibreves, 
the  semibreve  into  two  minims,  the  minim  into 
two  crotchets,  the  crotchet  into  two  quavers,  and 
so  on — but  they  strayed  instead  into  a  way  of 
dividing  notes  by  three.  It  is  unjust  to  assert, 
as  some  writers  have  done,  that  this  ternary 
system  was  chosen  *'  in  honour  of  the  Blessed 
Trinity."  But  it  was  chosen  all  the  same  ;  and, 
after  two  hundred  years  of  complexity,  it  had 
to  be  abandoned  in  favour  of  the  binary  prin- 
ciple. 

Even  the  nursery  piano  and  Ethel's  Instruction 


32  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Book  represent  millions  of  hours  spent  by  scores 
of  generations  of  musicians  in  plodding  and 
discouraging  experiment.  The  black  and  white 
keys  ;  the  tempering  of  the  instrument  ;  the 
five  lines  and  four  spaces  on  the  printed  page  ; 
the  clefs,  the  flats  and  sharps  and  accidentals,  the 
signatures  of  key  and  rhythm — these,  and  all  the 
other  everyday  things  which  Ethel  masters  in  a 
single  winter,  are  the  secretions  from  thousands 
of  once  busy  brains  whose  days  and  years  of 
racking  are  over.  In  a  few  cases  we  know  the 
life-histories  of  these  once  busy  ones.  In  many 
cases  only  their  old-world  names  remain.  In 
more  cases  still,  not  even  their  names  have 
survived.  But  out  of  their  labours,  out  of  their 
successes,  and  even  out  of  their  failures,  music 
has  been  built  up. 

Music  has  been  compared  to  an  enchanted 
island  of  the  southern  seas  into  whose  bright 
lagoons  men  steer  for  peace  and  refreshment 
after  the  buffetings  of  the  storms  outside.  One 
may  fairly  carry  the  comparison  further,  and  say 
that,  as  our  keels  grate  the  shore  and  our  eyes 
catch  sight  of  the  temples  gleaming  through 
the   palms,  we    ought    not    to    forget    the   coral 


THE  GREAT  UNKNOWN  33 

insects  who  laboured  at  the  foundations,  out  of 
sight  for  ages,  each  one  adding  his  tiny  arch  of 
limestone  to  the  whole  before  he  surrendered  his 
little  life.  The  first  Great  Musicians  were  the 
Great  Unknown. 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT 

npHE  lucky  persons  who  succeed  in  writing 
"  the  song  of  the  moment,"  "  the  waltz  of 
the  season,"  and  "  the  cake-walk  of  the  year,"  do 
themselves  too  much  honour.  When  one  of 
them  is  sweetly  awakened  o'  mornings  by  the 
milkman  whistling  his  masterpiece  on  the  area 
steps,  or  by  a  street  piano  pounding  it  out  round 
the  corner,  he  loves  to  lie  abed  flattering  himself 
that  his  sickly  or  catchy  tune  is,  for  the  time  being, 
the  most  widely  sung  and  widely  heard  bit  of 
music  in  all  Christendom.  His  delusion  is  great. 
It  may  be  true  that,  through  the  operations  of 
the  international  commercialism  by  which  modern 
art  is  overlain,  his  tune  will  be  sounded  almost 
simultaneously  in  all  the  music-halls  and  by 
nearly  all  the  barrel-organs  in  three  continents. 
But  it  is  also  true  that  no  tune  of  the  moment, 
not  even  the  very  worst,  ever  becomes  so  univer- 
sally  current   as    the    music    which    perpetually 

34 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  35 

rebukes  its  insincerity  and  vulgarity.  It  is  the 
oldest  and  not  the  newest  music  which  commands 
the  most  widespread  and  varied  audience  in  the 
world. 

The  oldest  music  in  the  world  is  the  chant  of 
the  Church — the  chant  which  she  uplifts  week 
after  week,  year  after  year,  century  after  century, 
in  every  clime  and  nation,  amid  white  men,  black 
men,  red  men,  bronze  men,  yellow  men  ;  under 
Arctic  darkness  and  under  the  equatorial  blaze  ; 
in  metropolis  and  in  hamlet  ;  in  narrow  shrine 
and  in  vast  basilica.  It  is  in  the  selfsame  strain 
that  the  eager  young  priest  in  French  Canada, 
the  bearded  missionary  in  Tibet,  and  the  silver- 
haired  Pontiff  in  Rome  must  all  alike  chant 
Sursum  corda  and  Vere  digyium  and  Pater  noster. 
And  so  primitive,  as  well  as  universal,  is  this 
sacred  heritage  of  song,  that  cool-headed  scholars 
have  been  inclined  to  identify  it  with  the  music 
of  the  Psalms  and  hymns  with  which  Jehovah 
was  praised  in  Solomon's  temple.  Others  have 
connected  it  with  the  music  which  so  deeply 
moved  Plato.  These  are  guesses  ;  but  it  is  certain 
that  when  St.  Ambrose,  in  the  fourth  century, 
set  himself  to  teach  his  clergy  how  they  might 


36  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

sing  it  better,  a  large  part  of  the  chant  was 
already  old. 

Yet  while  the  chant  is  the  oldest  of  surviving 
music,  it  is  also  the  youngest.  It  is  old  not  in 
the  sense  that  Gothic  armour  and  Roman  coins 
and  Egyptian  urns  are  old.  It  is  old  like  the  sea 
and  the  mountains  and  the  stars  and  the  sun  and 
the  moon.  It  is  old  without  being  old-fashioned. 
It  is  old  in  nothing  but  years  ;  for  its  heart  is  a 
fountain  of  beautiful  and  eternal  youth. 

At  the  present  day  the  chant,  after  long  neglect 
and  contempt,  is  once  more  coming  into  its  own. 
One  does  not  need  to  have  passed  middle  age  to 
remember  the  days  when  plain-chant  was  regarded 
by  the  great  majority  of  Englishmen  as  either  a 
nuisance  or  a  joke.  Most  people  believed  that 
plain-chant  was  thus  named  because  it  was  always 
so  very  plain,  just  as  they  suspected  that  blank 
verse  was  thus  called  because  it  was  generally  so 
very  blank.  They  imagined  that  the  difference 
between  plain-chant  and  the  harmonized  chants 
of  the  Anglican  composers  was  something  like 
the  difference  between  "  a  penny  plain  and 
tuppence  coloured."  The  writer  of  these  pages, 
after  putting  questions  about  the  church  music 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  37 

current  in  different  parishes,  has  more  than  once 
received  the  answer,  spoken  with  a  shiver  and  a 
wry  face,  "  They  do  Gregorians  !  "  The  latest 
edition  of  an  otherwise  commendable  encyclo- 
paedia gravely  assures  its  readers  that  the  chant  is 
of  antiquarian  rather  than  of  musical  interest  ; 
and  there  are  still  professional  musicians  who 
repeat  with  relish  a  foolish  story,  according  to 
which  Gregory  the  Great,  who,  for  an  act  of  pre- 
sumption, had  been  sentenced  by  heaven  to 
undergo  severe  internal  pains  all  day  long  save 
when  he  was  saying  Mass,  invented  the  long- 
drawn  Gregorian  chant  so  as  to  lengthen  his 
minutes  of  bodily  ease.  But  although  scoffers 
remain,  the  chant  is  everywhere  regaining  old 
positions  and  occupying  new  ones.  During  the 
forty  years  which  have  passed  since  Pius  IX  took 
steps  to  purge  the  printed  editions  of  their  cor- 
ruptions and  errors,  incessant  labour  has  been 
devoted,  notably  by  the  French  Benedictines,  to 
the  textual  criticism  of  the  chant  ;  and,  under 
Pius  X,  who  is  himself  a  musician,  there  are 
signs  that  the  laity  in  the  nave,  as  well  as  the 
clergy  and  choir  in  the  sanctuary,  will  soon  be 
educated  to  do   properly   all   over  Christendom 


38  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

what  they  have  long  done  badly  in  France, 
namely,  to  chant  the  musical  portions  of  the 
Ordinary  of  the  Mass,  as  well  as  Vespers  and 
Compline.  In  the  Church  of  England  also  a 
large  amount  of  hard  and  often  learned  and 
successful  work  has  been  done  ;  while  even  some 
of  the  Nonconformists  have  admitted  parts  of  the 
chant  to  their  hymn-books  and  psalters  with  the 
"  leading-note  "  duly  corrected. 

The  proof  of  the  chant  is  in  the  hearing. 
But,  after  a  lifelong  soaking  in  other  kinds  of 
music,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  every  listener 
will  discern  its  beauty  and  grandeur  at  a  first 
listening.  As  it  is  merely  melodious  and 
declamatory,  without  harmony,  a  beginner  may 
find  the  chant  bald.  Again,  it  will  take  him 
some  little  time  to  rebuild  his  notions  of 
tonality;  and  this  is  a  point  that  needs  to  be 
explained. 

Nearly  all  the  secular  music  which  one  hears 
is  composed  in  two  scales  only,  our  modern 
major  and  minor.  Let  the  reader  who  is 
ignorant  of  musical  theory  open  the  piano  and 
sound  in  succession  the  eight  white  keys  from 
middle  C  to  the  C  above.     His  ear  will  at  once 


S.AINT   CeCIUA, 
After  Raphael. 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  39 

tell  him  that  he  has  played  the  major  scale.  Let 
him  next  place  his  finger  on  A  and  strike  the 
eight  white  keys  down  to  the  A  below.  In  this 
second  case  he  will  know  that  he  has  played  the 
minor  scale.^  The  first  scale  sounds  open  and 
free;  the  second  sounds  more  painful  and  plain- 
tive. By  looking  at  the  keyboard  the  reader  will 
see  that  in  both  scales  he  has  played  six  full 
tones  and  two  half-tones,  or  semitones.  The 
semitones  are  from  E  to  F  and  from  B  to  C. 
His  eye  as  well  as  his  ear  will  tell  him  this;  for 
it  is  only  between  E  and  F  and  between  B  and  C 
that  there  are  no  black  keys. 

What  has  caused  this  difference  of  emotional 
effect  between  the  major  scale  and  the  minor  } 
By  looking  further  the  reader  will  find  the 
answer.  In  the  major,  the  semitones  are  between 
{a)  the  third  and  fourth,  and  (^)  the  seventh  and 
eighth  degrees  of  the  scale.  In  the  minor  they 
are  between  {a)  the  second  and  third,  and  {b)  the 
fifth  and  sixth.  This  distinction  sets  up  so  many 
differences  in  the  mutual  relations  of  the  eight 

^  To  sound  the  ascending  minor  scale  the  reader  would  have  to  use  one  of 
the  black  keys  and  turn  G  into  G  sharp.  But  as  tlie  soundest  theorists 
teach  that  the  student  ought  to  think  of  the  descending  minor  scale  described 
above,  there  is  no  need  to  complicate  the  argument. 


40  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

sounds  that,  although  the  same  wires  inside  the 
pianoforte  are  struck  by  the  same  hammers  in 
both  cases,  their  different  relationships  give  rise 
to  two  strongly  contrasting  tonal  effects. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  secular  composers  have 
been  satisfied  with  these  two  scales.  By  changes 
of  key  (effected  on  the  piano  or  organ  by  means 
of  the  black  keys)  they  seem  to  evade  monotony; 
but  upon  whatever  black  or  white  key  they  may 
commence  it,  their  major  scale  always  keeps  its 
semitones  between  the  third  and  fourth  and  the 
seventh  and  eighth,  and  their  minor  always  be- 
tween the  second  and  third  and  the  fifth  and 
sixth.  And  here  it  is  that  the  humble  "  Gre- 
gorians,"  the  poor  Gregorians  which  are  "  of 
antiquarian  rather  than  musical  interest,"  put  the 
secular  music  to  shame.  If  by  shifting  a  semi- 
tone, so  that  it  follows  the  second  instead  of  the 
third,  Music  can  produce  an  effect  almost  like 
drawing   a  curtain  across   a    sunny   window^  or 


1  Upon  certain  temperaments  an  abrupt  transition  Ironi  the  major  to 
the  minor,  or  wee  'versa,  has  an  extraordinary  effect.  Before  Rossini's 
Moses  in  Egypt  had  become  hackneyed,  people  who  heard  the  famous 
"  Prayer "  without  being  prepared  for  its  bold  change  of  scale  are  said 
to  have  swooned  away.  The  writer  has  lately  encountered  a  striking 
case  of  this  sensibility  in  a  musically  unlearned  person. 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  41 

blowing  out  a  candle,  why  should  not  Music 
still  further  enrich  her  resources  of  expression 
by  shifting  the  semitones  into  a  still  greater 
variety  of  positions  ? 

This  is  just  what  the  "  Gregorians "  have 
done.  To  make  the  matter  as  simple  as  possible, 
let  the  reader  keep  entirely  to  the  white  keys  and 
play  from  D  to  the  D  above.  This  scale  or 
"mode,"  with  its  semitones  after  the  second 
and  sixth,  is  identical  with  the  Phrygian  which 
Aristotle  considered  the  most  inspiring  of  all. 
Again,  let  him  work  upwards  from  E  and  he 
will  have  the  Dorian,  with  its  semitones  after 
the  first  and  fifth.  In  like  fashion  he  can  obtain 
the  rest  of  the  principal  ecclesiastical  modes 
simply  by  starting  from  the  remaining  white 
keys  of  the  octave  in  turn.  He  will  observe 
that  one  of  the  modes — the  Lydian,  beginning 
on  C — is  precisely  the  same  as  the  modern 
major  scale.  As  for  the  modern  minor  scale, 
Helmholtz  declared  it  to  be  a  fusion  of  the 
Church's  old  Dorian,  ^olian  and  Phrygian.^     It 

1  Popular  works  of  reference,  following  certain  writers  on  ecclesiastical 
music,  will  be  found  in  disagreement  with  the  above  passage  as  regards  the 
identification  of  the  D  scale  with  the  Phrygian.  They  prefer  to  call  it  the 
Dorian,  and  the  E  scale  the  Phrygian.     The  point  cannot  be  argued  here. 


42  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

follows  that  the  poor  musically-uninteresting 
Gregorians  commanded  not  only  our  modern 
scales,  but  a  very  great  deal  besides. 

Such  being  the  nature  of  the  so-called  Gre- 
gorian music,  it  almost  takes  one's  breath  away  to 
hear  it  said,  sometimes  even  by  people  with 
brains  in  their  skulls  and  without  plugs  in  their 
ears,  that  "  all  plaint-chant  sounds  alike."  An 
idea  is  abroad  that  the  boasted  variety  of  eccle- 
siastical modes  or  scales  amounts  to  nothing  at 
all  except  on  paper,  and  that  it  is  merely  a  faint 
imitation  of  the  16,000  keys  in  which  the  16,000 
nymphs  are  said  to  have  wooed  the  pretty  but 
coy  god  Krishna.  But  Plato  and  Aristotle 
thought  differently.  Plato  held  that  the  Lydian 
mode  (our  major  scale)  was  enervating,  and  he 
would  have  voted  for  its  suppression  by  law. 
He  maintained,  as  did  Aristotle,  that  the  Dorian 
was  so  dignified  and  virile  as  to  justify  the 
Spartan  schoolmaster  in  using  this  scale  alone  for 
the  instruction  of  youths  in  courage,  reverence, 
and  self-reliance.  And  so  skilled  was  Pythagoras 
in  prescribing  and  administering  music  as  a 
medicine  for  all  kinds  and  states  of  diseased 
minds  that  he  is  said  to  have  cured  by  a  song  in 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  43 

the  most  suitable  mode  a  youth  whom  jealousy 
had  driven  into  the  beginnings  of  a  mad  crime. 
The  Church,  however,  taking  up  the  ancient 
music  as  she  had  taken  up  the  ancient  architec- 
ture and  painting,  soon  carried  it  to  heights  of 
which  Aristotle  had  not  dreamed.  It  has  lately 
been  argued  that  it  was  not  Gregory  the  Great 
but  a  later  pope  of  the  same  name  who  added  to 
the  "  authentic  "  scales  of  St.  Ambrose  the  four 
scales  called  "  Plagal."  But  the  fact  remains  that 
either  a  great  or  a  lesser  Gregory  did  truly  en- 
large in  this  way  the  resources  of  art.  Upon 
sympathetic  ears  the  authentic  and  plagal  modes 
fall  with  a  most  moving  distinction  of  effect.  To 
say,  as  some  have  done,  that  "  the  Authentic 
suggests  self-relying  man,  the  Plagal  dependent 
woman,"  or  that  "  the  Authentic  symbolizes  the 
satisfying  and  ever-returning  movement  of 
Divine  life,  the  Plagal  symbolizing  the  longing 
and  striving  of  the  world  to  find  in  the  Divine 
both  peace  and  rest,"  is  to  indulge  fancy  too 
freely.  But,  underneath  all  uncritical  excesses 
stands  the  testimony  of  fifty  generations  to  the 
power  of  the  ever-varying  chant  to  express  all 
that  the  human  heart  can  feel  of  sorrow  and  joy. 


44  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

of  abasement  and  exaltation,  of  faith  and  hope 
and  love. 

The  plain-chant  notation,  with  its  square  in- 
stead of  oval-headed  notes  and  its  four  lines 
instead  of  five,  has  an  occult  flavour  :  but  it 
gives  up  its  secrets  to  a  diligent  student  at  the 
end  of  a  few  hours.  Nowadays,  however,  it  is 
not  strictly  necessary  to  wrestle  with  this  small 
difficulty,  as  the  whole  of  the  chant  in  common 
use  has  been  edited  by  the  monks  of  Solesmes 
and  by  certain  commercial  publishers  in  modern 
notation,  at  a  low  price.  But  readers  who  have 
never  made  its  acquaintance  as  a  living  body  of 
music  must  not  expect  the  plain-song  to  open  its 
inmost  heart  at  the  mere  hammering  of  certain 
notes  on  the  piano.  The  organ  may  assist  it  ; 
but  the  human  voice  is  the  only  instrument  on 
which  this  music  can  be  duly  performed.  It  is 
called  "plain"  because  it  is  planus  or  smoothly 
moving,  and  one  might  as  well  look  at  blush- 
roses  through  blue  glasses  as  thud  out  the  chant 
on  a  pianoforte  with  so  many  crisp  beats  to  the  bar. 

The  only  way  for  the  uninitiated  to  enter  into 
this  goodly  heritage  is  to  take  a  book  and  frequent 
a  church  where  plain-chant  is  sung  all  the  year 


Saint  Cecilia. 

After  Mignar.i. 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  45 

through.  At  Vespers  the  psalm  tones  will  be 
heard  ranging  through  the  cycle  of  the  eight 
great  modes,  and  perhaps  the  psalm  In  exitu  Israel 
will  be  sung  to  the  wonderful  Tonus  Peregrinus 
which,  even  at  a  first  hearing,  subdues  every 
heart.  At  Compline,  in  Te  lucis  ante  terminum,  the 
chant  will  prove  itself  no  less  able  to  deal  with  a 
metrical  hymn  than  with  a  prose  text. 

Of  all  the  doubters  who  have  been  converted 
into  champions  of  the  chant,  probably  the  majority 
date  their  change  of  heart  from  some  devout 
observance  of  Holy  Week  in  a  cathedral  or 
monastic  church  where  the  Roman  liturgy  is  fully 
and  reverently  performed.  Like  the  music  of 
Wagner's  later  dramas,  the  music  of  the  Church 
was  never  intended  as  a  self-sufficient  art  pro- 
duct ;  it  was  not  made  to  be  torn  away  from  its 
reverberating  architectural  background  and  its 
austerely  emotional  atmosphere.  This  fact  alone 
suffices  to  explain  the  flatness  and  failure  of  the 
lectures  on  plain-song  delivered  by  enthusiasts  in 
halls  and  parish-rooms  "with  illustrations  by  a 
select  choir." 

A  Palm  Sunday  morning  service  can  impart  to 
a  sympathetic  worshipper  more  of  the  letter  and 


46  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

spirit  of  plain-chant  than  he  could  gain  from  fifty- 
lectures  or  a  hundred  articles.  To  hear  Gloria 
laus  et  honor  in  its  proper  context  is  a  revelation 
to  the  jaded  men  and  women  who  have  got  into 
a  way  of  expecting  every  melody  to  be  enriched 
with  bold  harmony,  seasoned  with  incessant 
changes  of  key,  and  coloured  with  vivid  instru- 
mentation. Gloria  laus  et  honor  is  simply  a  naked 
strain  of  melody,  wrought  out  of  a  mere  half- 
dozen  of  tones  and  sung  without  the  organ  or 
any  other  accompaniment  whatsoever.  After  the 
Palm  Sunday  procession,  bearing  palm  branches 
and  a  cross,  has  passed  right  out  of  the  church 
and  the  western  doors  have  been  shut  behind  it, 
two  cantors  who  have  remained  inside  begin  the 
hymn.  The  crowd  without  repeats  the  strain, 
singing  alternately  with  the  cantors  through 
the  shut  doors  to  the  end.  Then  the  Subdeacon, 
without,  knocks  at  the  door  with  the  foot  of  the 
cross,  and  the  procession  returns  singing  Ingredi- 
ente  Domino  in  Sanctum  Civitatem — "  When  the 
Lord  entered  into  the  holy  city."  In  many 
churches  there  is  a  bad  custom  of  singing  Ingre- 
diente  to  jaunty  modern  music,  a  sin  against  art 
and  devotion  which  has  the  one  sorry  merit  of 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  47 

proving  even  to  casual  listeners  the  immense 
superiority,  for  its  own  purposes,  of  the  ancient 
chant. 

It  is  on  this  same  Feast  of  the  Palms  that  one 
may  hear  the  plain-song  as  part  of  the  greatest 
music-drama  in  the  world.  All  round  the  church 
the  images  are  huddling  under  penitential  veils. 
The  altars  are  almost  bare,  the  pictures  are 
hiding  behind  curtains  of  violet  crape.  The  organ 
is  silent,  and  the  shadow  of  the  Passion  lies  over 
all.  The  proud  hymn  and  the  joyous  antiphons 
with  which  the  long  procession  of  palm-bearers 
has  recalled  the  Lord's  triumphant  entry  into 
Jerusalem  are  over,  and  the  Church  sorrowfully 
composes  her  mind  to  walk  at  His  side  all  the 
days  of  Holy  Week,  descending  through  deeper 
and  deeper  gloom  to  the  great  darkness  round 
Calvary,  and  the  silence  of  the  new  tomb  in 
Joseph's  garden. 

The  moment  comes  for  the  singing  of  the 
Passion.  From  the  bishop  on  his  canopied 
throne  to  the  humblest  believer  far  down  in  the 
nave,  every  one  stands  up  holding  a  branch  or  a 
spike  of  palm.  Round  the  throne  the  palm- 
branches  are  so  tall  that  their  tops  bend  of  their 


48  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

own  weight  into  tremulous  arbours  and  arches. 
The  pale  spikes  in  the  hands  of  the  faithful  are 
like  a  forest  of  spears. 

At  three  lecterns  within  the  sanctuary  rails 
stand  three  cantors  vested  as  deacons.  There  is 
a  solemn  silence.  Then,  without  any  of  the  usual 
ceremonious  carrying  of  lights  and  swinging  of 
censers  and  kissing  of  books,  one  of  the  cantors 
straightway  begins  to  chant  the  Passion  accord- 
ing to  St.  Matthew.  It  is  the  duty  of  this  first 
cantor  to  deliver  rapidly  and  clearly  all  the  narra- 
tive portions  of  St.  Matthew's  text.  The  second 
cantor,  in  a  lower  tone  and  much  more  sadly  and 
slowly,  sings  all  the  words  which  the  evangelist 
ascribes  to  our  Lord.  The  third  cantor  sings,  in 
a  high  voice,  all  the  speeches  of  the  individual 
human  actors  in  the  Passion,  such  as  Judas 
Iscariot,  Pontius  Pilate,  Simon  Peter,  and  the 
High  Priest.  As  for  the  exclamations  of  the 
crowd,  such  as  "  Barabbas  !  "  "  Crucify  Him  !  " 
and  "  Behold,  the  King  of  the  Jews  !  "  these  are 
sung  by  the  whole  choir,  not  in  plain-chant,  b"^- 
generally  to  the  finely  congruous  music  written 
by  the  great  Spaniard  Vittoria  more  than  three 
hundred  years  ago. 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  49 

The  listener  whose  Latin  has  become  rusty- 
will,  of  course,  follow  the  cantors  in  one  of  the 
cheap  little  Holy  Week  books  which  give  the 
Latin  and  English  side  by  side.  By  the  time  the 
chorus  bursts  out  with  its  first  abrupt  protest  Non 
in  die  festo^  a  musical  hearer,  even  if  he  be  not  a 
believer  in  the  historical  truthfulness  of  St.  Mat- 
thew's narrative,  begins  to  feel  that  he  is  at  least 
listening  to  one  of  the  immortal  wonders  of  music. 
As  for  the  believers,  as  they  attend  at  the  outset 
to  the  evangelist's  account  of  the  woman  breaking 
the  alabaster  box  of  precious  ointment,  the  grave 
chanting  of  the  Lord's  words,  "  Verily  I  say  unto 
you,  wheresoever  this  gospel  shall  be  preached  in 
the  whole  world,  that  also  which  she  hath  done 
shall  be  told  for  a  memory  of  her,"  uplifts  them 
on  a  new  wave  of  faith,  for  they  know  that  on 
this  same  Palm  Sunday,  to  this  same  chant,  in 
this  same  Latin,  "  in  the  whole  world  "  the  pro- 
phecy is  being  fulfilled,  and  the  story  of  the 
alabaster  box  is  being  told  "  for  a  memory  of 
her  "  who  brake  it. 

The  Passion  is  sung  to  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful and  expressive  of  all  the  chants,  which 
could  be  readily  adapted  to  many  other  liturgical 


50  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

purposes  :  but  when  Good  Friday  and  the  sing- 
ing of  the  Passion  according  to  St.  John  are  over, 
this  particular  chant  is  not  heard  again  till  the 
Palm  Sunday  of  the  following  year.  No  one 
knows  who  wrote  it  ;  but  it  appears  to  have 
originated  about  the  sixth  or  seventh  century,  in 
the  happy  days  when  composers  had  lost  all  the 
old  musical  grammars  and  had  not  begun  to  make 
new  ones.  In  its  present  form  it  can  hardly  be 
less  than  seven  hundred  years  old.  As  the  sing- 
ing of  the  Passion  lasts  nearly  three-quarters  of 
an  hour,  the  same  melody  is  repeated  scores  of 
times  with  nothing  but  the  few  short  choral  inter- 
jections to  relieve  it ;  yet  so  subtly  are  its 
cadences  varied  according  to  the  words  which  are 
to  follow,  that  only  the  most  careless  and  impatient 
hearer  can  find  it  tiresome.  Quite  apart  from 
religious  devotion,  there  are  few  scenes  or  acts 
of  equal  length  in  even  the  most  famous  operas 
which  one  could  endure  with  less  weariness 
if  one  had  to  stand  up  all  the  time  with  nothi^.g 
more  than  the  book  of  words. 

On  the  Wednesday,  Thursday,  and  Friday 
evenings  of  Holy  Week  the  chant  becomes  still 
more  impressive  in  the  solemn  offices  of  "Tene- 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  51 

brae  "  or  the  Darkness.  As  the  end  of  each  of 
the  appointed  fourteen  Psalms  is  sung,  one  of 
fourteen  candles  on  a  triangular  candlestick  is  ex- 
tinguished, until,  in  the  final  gloom,  the  Psalm 
Miserere  pleads  with  God  like  a  voice  from  the 
tomb.  On  Good  Friday,  when  the  doors  of  the 
empty  tabernacle  are  open  and  the  fonts  and 
stoups  are  dry  and  the  priest  is  vested  in  black, 
the  Improperia^  or  Reproaches,  are  sung  in  Greek 
and  Latin  to  chants  which,  like  the  chant  of  the 
Passion,  are  consecrated  to  this  time  alone. 

Holy  Saturday  is  Easter  Eve.  On  this  day  the 
curtains  are  drawn  away  from  the  pictures,  the 
veils  fall  from  the  statues,  the  sacred  ministers 
are  clad  in  white  and  gold,  the  bells  are  rung  and 
the  organ  breaks  its  long  silence  with  the  first 
crash  of  Gloria  in  excehis  Deo.  On  so  radiant  a 
feast  it  is  to  be  expected  that  the  chant  will  soar 
up  to  its  highest  heights.  And  the  expected 
happens.  From  a  lofty  tribune,  as  if  to  show 
that  the  joy  of  the  Resurrection  has  lifted  him 
above  the  common  earth,  a  deacon  bursts  forth 
with  the  sublime  Exultet  jam  angelica  turha  ccelorum 
— "  Now  let  the  angelic  host  of  heaven  rejoice." 
From  an  artist's  as  well  as  from  a  churchman's 


52  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

point  of  view  this  is  one  of  the  noblest  composi- 
tions in  existence.     It  is  one  of  the  longest  solos 

o 

ever  written  ;  and  to  keep  the  pitch  throughout, 
with  no  aid  from  organ  and  orchestra,  would  tax 
most  of  the  lions  of  the  opera-house  and  the 
concert-room  far  beyond  their  powers.  So  exul- 
tant are  the  words  of  this  incomparable  song  that 
for  once  the  Church  refuses  to  be  holden  by  the 
cold  fetters  of  precise  theology,  and  even  apostro- 
phizes the  sin  of  Adam,  crying  "O  Felix  culpa  /" 
— "  O  happy  fault,  which  did  deserve  so  great  a 
Redeemer  "  !  Such  words  are  astonishing  :  but 
the  music  is  more  astonishing  still. 

To  wander  along  the  aisles  of  certain  thirteenth- 
century  cathedrals,  wherein  political  or  ecclesi- 
astical changes  have  silenced  the  venerable  chant, 
is  one  of  the  chilliest  and  dreariest  sadnesses  of 
a  musician's  life.  A  twentieth-century  musical 
comedy  in  Wagner's  Festival  Theatre  at  Bay- 
reuth,  or  Barnum's  Greatest  Show  on  Er'-th  in 
the  Colosseum  at  Rome,  would  not  be  more  un- 
seemly than  the  proceedings  of  certain  organists 
and  choirmasters  beneath  the  hallowed  vaults  of 
most  famous  minsters.  There  are  cathedrals  in 
which,  even  when  full  allowance  has  been  made 


THE  UNCEASING  CHANT  53 

for  the  different  purchasing  power  of  money,  the 
few  and  short  services  cost  much  more  to-day 
than  in  the  spacious  times  when  the  full-drawn 
ceremonial  of  the  ancient  liturgy  was  enriched 
by  music  from  beginning  to  end  ;  and  yet  these 
cathedrals  have  to  be  content  with  music  which 
would  be  many  sizes  too  small  for  a  suburban 
parish  church.  A  few  unfitting  "double-chants" 
for  the  Psalms,  somebody's  tame  and  tired 
"  Service  in  G,"  some  other  body's  trite  or  senti- 
mental anthem,  and  the  thing  is  done.  The 
objection  to  such  music  is  not  that  it  is  modern, 
but  simply  that  it  is  bad.  Amidst  those  cliff-like 
piers  of  hoary  stone  it  is  meet  and  right  that  the 
song  of  the  Church  should  run  at  full  flood,  like 
a  mountain  stream  after  rain  ;  instead  of  which 
one  often  finds  it  trickling  along  like  a  shrunken 
and  tepid  runnel  after  drought.  Or  rather  the 
Church's  song  should  resound  as  grandly  and 
peacefully  under  those  dim  roofs  as  a  summer 
sea  in  untrodden  caves. 

Like  to  a  summer  sea,  indeed,  is  the  ancient 
chant,  ever  withdrawing  to  the  great  deeps,  ever 
returning  to  break  in  slow,  full  cadence  all  along 
the  shore.     To  sit  near  the  western  doors  of  a 


54  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

great  church,  and  hear  the  chant  rising  and  fall- 
ing in  the  distant  choir,  heals  the  soul  even  as  a 
sick  heart  is  healed  by  the  grave  speech  of  far- 
away breakers.  That  there  are  hearers  whom 
the  chant  offends  by  its  monotony  is  sad,  but  not 
surprising :  for  there  are  millions  of  people 
who  never  seek  the  sea  save  in  crowded  spots 
where  they  can  turn  their  eyes  and  ears  away 
from  its  immensity  and  majesty  to  see  and  hear 
the  negro-minstrels  on  the  beach. 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS 


npHERE  may  be  a  great  deal  in  a  name.  To 
call  Orlandus  Lassus,  as  many  writers  per- 
sist in  calling  him,  "  Orlando  di  Lasso,"  is  to 
strengthen  the  disastrous  belief  that  Italy  has 
been  the  most  musical  of  nations.  It  is  true 
that  for  a  short  spell  in  the  palmiest  days  of 
Palestrina  and  his  school,  Italian  musicians  were 
the  first  in  the  world.  But  Palestrina  had  been 
taught  his  business  by  the  masters  of  the  Nether- 
lands. Left  to  themselves,  Italian  composers 
have  done  vastly  more  to  drag  Music  down  than 
to  lift  her  up. 

Orlandus  Lassus  ;  otherwise  Roland  van 
Lattre  ;  otherwise  Roland  Delattre  ;^  otherwise 
Orlando  di  Lasso  ;  otherwise  Orlandus  Lassusius, 
was  no  Italian,  but  a  Fleming.  He  first  saw  the 
light  at  Mons.  '"According  to  some  investigators 
he  was   born   in    1520;  according  to    others    in 

*  Delattre  is  still  a  common  surname  in  PicarJy  and  Flanders. 

55 


56  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

1 530.  There  Is  a  similar  obscurity  as  to  the  birth- 
year  of  Palestrina,  which  was  15 14,  1524,  1525, 
or  1526.  It  follows  that  Lassus,  who  is  generally 
thought  of  as  Palestrina's  senior,  may  have  been 
his  junior  by  some  years.  But  Lassus  precedes 
Palestrina  in  this  book  on  other  than  chronologi- 
cal grounds  ;  for,  great  as  it  is,  and  despite  its 
many  anticipations  of  modern  methods,  his  music 
as  a  whole  stands  nearer  than  Palestrina's  to  the 
archaic  period. 

Seeing  that  almost  the  only  instruments  for 
which  the  serious  composers  of  his  time  wrote 
their  music  were  human  voices,  it  was  a  good  day 
for  young  Roland  van  Lattre  when  he  was  chosen 
to  sing  in  the  choir  of  St.  Nicolas'  Church  at 
Mons,  thus  acquiring  from  the  outset  a  practical 
acquaintance  with  his  medium.  As  a  chorister 
he  also  learned  nearly  all  that  was  to  be  known 
of  musical  notation.  And,  best  of  all,  h'"  was  able 
to  saturate  his  mind  with  the  finest  works  of  the 
Flemish  and  French  and  English  masters. 

It  is  possible  to  make  something  better  than  a 
guess  at  the  repertory  from  which  young  Roland 
drew  the  materials  and  inspirations  for  his  own 
creative    efforts.      In    the    choir   of   St.    Nicolas 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS  57 

his  main  preoccupation  would  be  the  ancient 
chant  with  its  bold  and  expressive  and  varied 
melody.  On  the  more  ornamental  side  of  each 
week's  work  stood  the  motets,  hymns,  psalms, 
and  masses  of  the  fast  -  ripening  polyphonic 
school.  Foremost  among  these  were  the  writ- 
ings of  Josquin  Despres,  who  enjoyed  so  great 
a  popularity  throughout  Christendom  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fifteenth  century  that  there  was 
hardly  a  church  choir  in  all  Italy  and  Spain, 
Hungary  and  Germany,  Flanders  and  France, 
by  which  his  compositions  were  not  sung.  Like 
most  of  the  immense  reputations  of  artists  in 
the  Middle  Ages  and  in  the  prime  of  the  Re- 
naissance, the  reputation  of  Josquin  Despres 
was  soundly  grounded  in  sterling  genius,  and  it 
would  be  possible  to  make  a  deep  impression 
on  a  twentieth-century  audience  by  a  recital  of 
excerpts  from  his  works.^ 

Another  composer  whose  writings  were  held 
in  great  esteem  was  Adrien  Willaert.  Born  at 
Bruges  in  1480,  this  highly  original  musician 
practised  his  art  in  Rome  until  the  jealousy  of 

1  In  the  list  of  composers  kept  at  Munich  the  name  of  Josquin 
Despres  alone  was  entered  in  large  capital  letters. 


58  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

his  fellow-musicians  in  Pope  Leo's  service  drove 
him  out.  Rome's  loss  was  Venice's  gain.  Will- 
aert's  triumphs  at  St.  Mark's  made  up  for  the 
humiliations  of  St.  Peter's.  In  Willaert's  day, 
as  in  our  own,  St.  Mark's  boasted  two  organs, 
facing  one  another — an  arrangement  which  sug- 
gested to  Willaert  the  first  great  harmonic  com- 
positions for  a  double  choir.  The  Venetians 
called  these  compositions  aurum  potabih^  or  drink- 
able gold  ;  and  they  were  destined  to  wield  a 
powerful  influence  over  Orlandus  Lassus. 

Outside  church  walls  the  little  chorister  heard 
music  of  a  kind  with  which  modern  ears  would 
more  quickly  feel  at  home.  Many  of  the  popu- 
lar ballads  and  love-songs  of  the  day  were  written 
in  modes  resembling  our  major  and  minor  scales, 
and  with  anticipations  of  our  simpler  modern 
rhythm  and  harmony.  The  cities  of  Flanders 
were  prosperous,  and  town  banu3  and  choral 
societies  were  not  unknown.  The  performances 
of  the  bands  will  not  bear  much  dwelling  upon  ; 
but  some  of  the  choral  societies  had  already 
stimulated  composers  to  turn  aside  now  and  again 
from  the  inditing  of  motets  and  masses  and  to 
attempt   secular   cantatas.      For    example,   there 


■^ 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS  59 

was  Gombert,  a  cleric  of  Bruges,  who  amused 
himself  in  his  leisure  by  writing  musical  parodies 
and  humorous  imitations  of  birds  and  rustics. 
Again,  there  was  Jannequin,  who  painted  realistic 
tone-pictures  with  such  titles  as  The  Siege  of 
Metz^  The  Stag-hunt^  The  Capture  of  Boulogne^  The 
Larky  The  Nightingale^  The  Street-cries  of  Paris, 
and  The  Battle.  To  imitate  storms  and  fightings 
and  bird-songs  on  an  orchestra,  with  big  drums 
and  trumpets  and  the  wood-wind,  is  not  very  diffi- 
cult ;  but  Jannequin  achieved  convincing  results 
simply  by  ingenious  part-writing  for  human 
voices,  without  assistance  from  the  organ  or  any 
other  musical  instrument  whatsoever. 

Artists,  however,  are  made  not  only  by  techni- 
cal training  and  by  the  study  of  their  predeces- 
sors' achievements,  but  by  full  draughts  of  human 
joy  and  sorrow.  And  Roland  van  Lattre's  cup 
was  soon  plenished  with  sweet  and  bitter  potions. 
His  wonderful  young  voice  drew  crowds  of 
admirers  to  St.  Nicolas'  Church.  But  among 
the  auditors  it  sometimes  happened  that  there 
were  connoisseurs  who  were  not  content  merely 
to  listen  and  marvel  and  go  away.  It  was  said 
that   the   boy  was   kidnapped   on    three   separate 


6o  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

occasions  by  the  agents  of  other  choirs.  In  all 
three  cases  the  success  of  the  abductors  was 
short-lived.  The  lad  returned  to  Mons  ;  but  not 
to  happiness. 

Justly  or  unjustly,  Roland's  father  appears  to 
have  been  convicted  as  a  coiner.  As  a  punish- 
ment, the  unhappy  burgess  was  compelled  to  walk 
three  times  round  the  public  scaffold  with  a  collar 
of  counterfeit  coins  dangling  from  his  neck.  It  is 
said  that  Roland  was  himself  a  witness  of  his 
father's  degradation,  and  that  the  iron  of  shame 
entered  so  deeply  into  his  soul  as  to  drive  him 
from  home  to  seek  his  fortune.  Dropping  his 
disgraced  name  like  a  sooty  and  scorching  coal, 
he  began  to  call  himself  Orlandus  Lassus  ;  and 
at  sixteen  he  quitted  Flanders  for  Milan  and 
Palermo,  in  the  train  of  Ferdinand  of  Gonzaga, 
the  new-made  Viceroy  of  Sicily.  He  never  saw 
his  parents  again.  Some  years  later  news  of 
their  illness  reached  him  in  Rome,  and  he  set 
out  at  once  for  Mons  ;  but  Death's  horse  was 
quicker  than  his,  and  he  reached  the  old  home 
too  late. 

The  young  manhood  of  Lassus  has  been  hazily 
recorded  ;  but  it  has  been  maintained  that,  about 


ORLANDUS   LASSUS  6i 

the  time  of  his  attaining  his  twenty-first  year,  he 
had  won  the  favour  of  the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of 
Florence,  and  was  acting  as  chapel-master  of  St. 
John  Lateran.  During  the  reign  of  Queen  Mary 
he  is  said  to  have  visited  England  and  France  in 
the  company  of  an  Italian  nobleman.  All  this  is 
arguable  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  in  1555  he  estab- 
lished himself  in  Antwerp,  and  that  the  musicians 
of  the  city  were  swift  and  ardent  in  their  recogni- 
tion of  his  towering  genius.  Indeed,  their 
enthusiasm  was  so  great  that  the  Fuggers,  the 
large-m.inded  merchant-princes  of  Nuremberg, 
heard  of  the  fame  of  Lassus  through  their  Ant- 
werp agents,  and  brought  about  his  appointment 
as  chapel-master  to  Albert  V,  Duke  of  Bavaria. 
In  1557  Lassus  left  Belgium  for  Munich.^ 

Few  people  will  deny  that  during  the  eigh- 
teenth and  nineteenth  centuries  Germany  pro- 
duced a  greater  number  of  first-rank  musicians 
than  all  the  rest  of  the  world  put  together.  But 
Germans    have    not    always     held    the    musical 

1  As  so  many  of  the  musicians  discussed  in  this  book  held  posts  as 
chapel-masters  and  "masters  of  the  children,"  the  plate  after  Dawant, 
reproduced  at  page  62,  may  interest  the  reader.  Of  course  the  original 
(in  the  Luxembourg)  is  a  modern  painting  ;  but  one  maitrise  has  been 
pretty  much  like  another  maitrise  for  three  hundred  years. 


62  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

primacy.  They  were  late  in  entering  the  field  ; 
and  in  the  sixteenth  century  they  were  proud 
to  import  Netherlanders  not  only  as  composers, 
but  as  executants  too.  Accordingly,  Lassus  was 
accompanied  on  his  journey  from  Antwerp  to 
Munich  by  a  number  of  Flemish  singers  whom 
he  had  been  bidden  to  engage  for  the  ducal 
choir. 

Even  at  the  present  day  Munich,  with  its 
Wagner  Festivals  equal  to  Bayreuth's  own, 
stands  in  the  forefront  of  the  musical  cities.  But 
in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  its 
artistic  position  was  prouder  still.  Duke  Albert 
was  a  liberal  and  enlightened  patron.  From 
Thackeray  downwards,  the  satirists  have  heaped 
a  great  deal  of  cheap  ridicule  on  German  Courts  ; 
but  it  had  been  better  for  England  if  her  royal 
and  national  revenues  had  been  bestowed  with 
equal  generosity  and  discrimination  upon  art 
and  artists. 

Sixteenth-century  Munich  resembled  modern 
London,  but  with  one  or  two  striking  differences. 
To  Munich,  as  to  London,  the  artists  of  Chris- 
tendom flocked  ;  in  Munich,  as  in  London, 
they  were    better    paid     than    anywhere    else  ; 


OS     s 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS  63 

in  Munich,  as  in  London,  the  natives  had  a 
leaning  towards  foreign  music  and  musicians. 
But  there  the  resemblance  ends.  The  new 
musicians  whom  Munich  welcomed  and  ac- 
claimed and  rewarded  were  often  the  best  men 
of  their  time  ;  whereas  London  loads  mediocrities 
and  charlatans  with  gifts  and  honours  while  they 
are  living,  and  is  often  blind  to  the  truth  about 
the  great  men  until  they  are  dead.  Again, 
Munich  was  not  guilty  of  praising  and  rewarding 
singers  and  mere  executants  of  music  more 
abundantly  than  the  composers  by  whom  the 
music  was  made. 

Orlandus  Lassus  was  received  by  Munich  not 
only  with  delight  but  with  respect.  Munich, 
from  the  Duke  to  the  r^eanest  citizen,  respected 
him  because  he  respected  himself.  He  took  his 
place  in  the  Court  and  in  the  city  as  a  witty  and 
learned  and  high-spirited  and  polished  gentle- 
man, without  any  of  the  ridiculous  airs  and 
poses  which  have  disfigured  too  great  a  propor- 
tion of  musicians  in  all  ages.  Everybody  liked 
him.  One  of  his  contemporaries  has  placed  it 
on  record  that  "with  all  his  distinguished  col- 
leagues he  lived  so  quietly  and  peacefully  that 


64  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

all  were  forced  to  love  him,  to  respect  him  in 
his  presence,  and  to  praise  him  in  his  absence." 
Again,  so  great  was  his  personal  magnetism,  that 
his  singers,  "  taking  courage  like  warriors  at  the 
sound  of  a  trumpet,  needed  no  other  orders  than 
the  expression  of  that  powerful  and  vigorous 
countenance."  It  is  on  record  that  at  some  im- 
promptu Court  theatricals  he  was  the  life  and 
soul  of  the  company.  It  is  therefore  not  sur- 
prising that  in  the  year  following  his  arrival  in 
Bavaria  he  was  accepted  as  a  husband  by  a  young 
noblewoman,  Regina  Weckinger,  one  of  the 
maids  of  honour  to  the  Duchess.  Four  years 
later  Orlandus  was  raised  from  the  position  of 
chapel-master  to  that  of  chapel-master-in-chief. 

To  be  chapel-master-in-chief  to  the  Duke  of 
Bavaria  was  to  hold  the  most  coveted  musical 
post  in  the  world.  It  involved  the  direction  of 
the  Duke's  orchestra  as  well  as  the  Duke's  choir  ; 
and  to  mark  his  ascent  to  the  dignity,  Lassus 
was  dispatched  to  Antwerp  to  secure  a  new 
supply  of  singers.  He  returned  to  Munich  in 
1563,  and,  declining  a  tempting  post  at  the 
Court  of  Saxony  which  would  have  involved  his 
becoming   a   Protestant,   settled   down   to   write 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS  65 

the  compositions  by  which  he  will  live  as  one  of 
the  immortal  musicians. 

Lassus  is  believed  to  have  been  the  most  pro- 
lific of  all  the  great  composers.  His  works  have 
been  said  to  num.ber  2500,  including  51  masses, 
180  settings  of  the  Magnificat,  233  madrigals, 
59  canzonets,  and  371  French  songs.  The 
seventeen  volumes  of  Magellan  Opus  Musicuniy 
published  in  1604  by  his  two  sons,  contain  516 
of  his  motets  ;  yet  264  seem  to  have  been 
omitted.  Of  his  Cantiones  Sacrae,  429  are  still 
in  existence.  A  complete  edition  of  all  these 
works  is  in  course  of  publication  (by  Breit- 
kopf  and  Hitrtel)  which  will  extend  to  sixty 
volumes. 

Perhaps  Lassus  is  best  remembered  nowadays 
by  his  Penitential  Psalms^  by  his  mass  Qiiinti  Toniy 
by  his  Stabat  Mater^  by  his  brief  but  glorious 
Adoramus  Te  Christe^  and  by  his  motet  Gustate, 
Videte. 

Gustate,  Videte  is  entitled  to  survive  on  its 
merits.  But  this  motet  has  been  cherished  on 
other  than  musical  grounds.  For  many  genera- 
tions pious  folk  in  Munich  associated  it  with  a 
picturesque  miracle.     Tradition  declares  that  on 


66  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  feast  of  Corpus  Christi,  1584,  a  frightful 
storm  of  rain  and  thunder  and  lightning  broke 
out  just  as  the  Prince  Bishop  of  Eichstadt  was 
about  to  issue  from  the  great  doors  of  St.  Peter's 
Church  and  to  bear  the  Blessed  Sacrament  in 
solemn  procession  through  the  city.  Duke  Wil- 
helm,  who  had  succeeded  Albert  V,  sent  men  up 
the  tower  to  signal  the  end  of  the  storm.  But 
the  skies  grew  blacker  and  blacker,  until  the  Duke 
gave  up  all  idea  of  the  outdoor  procession  in 
despair,  and  bade  the  clergy  carry  the  sacred 
Host,  accompanied  by  the  prescribed  chant,  to 
the  western  doors  and  no  further.  It  happened 
that  the  words  to  be  sung  were  Gustate^  Videte — 
"  O  Taste  and  See  how  gracious  is  the  Lord." 
No  sooner  had  the  singers  delivered  these  words, 
to  the  music  of  their  leader,  Lassus,  than  the  rain 
ceased,  the  sky  cleared,  and  the  procession  passed 
out  to  thread  the  streets  of  Munich  in  brilliant 
sunshine.  Not  a  drop  of  rain  fell,  not  a  distant 
peal  of  thunder  muttered,  until  all  had  regained 
the  portal.  Then  the  heavens  once  more  grew 
dark,  the  thunderbolts  crashed,  the  lightning 
blazed,  and  the  rain  came  down  in  a  deluge.  For 
a  long  time  afterwards  it  was  the  custom  to  sing 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS  67 

Gustate^    Videte    in    connexion    with    prayers    for 
fine  weather. 

As  for  the  Penitential  Psalms^  the  penitence 
they  express  is  so  deep  and  vast  that  somebody 
who  heard  them  in  the  seventeenth  century  in- 
vented a  striking  story  to  explain  it.  Taking  as 
a  foundation  the  proved  fact  that,  in  1571, 
Lassus  went  to  Paris  and  to  the  Court  of 
Charles  IX  of  France,  this  ingenious  story-teller 
built  up  a  fanciful  superstructure  of  anecdote 
according  to  which  the  French  king  persuaded 
the  Bavarian  chapel-master  to  compose  his  Peni- 
tential Psalms  as  a  magnificent  outlet  for  the  royal 
remorse  and  grief  after  the  massacres  of  St. 
Bartholomew's  Eve.  The  truth  is  that  the  Peni- 
tential Psabns  had  been  finished  more  than  seven 
years  before  the  massacres  began.  But,  in  this 
instance,  the  fact  is  surely  better  than  the  fiction. 
It  is  good  to  know  than  in  these  inestimable 
compositions  Lassus  was  giving  utterance  to  the 
sorrow  of  the  universal  human  heart,  and  that 
he  was  not  merely  a  courtly  and  talented  hireling 
fulfilling  a  grandiose  commission.  It  is  true  that 
Duke  Albert  is  said  to  have  suggested  the  work, 
and   the  Library   at    Munich   still   treasures  the 


68  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

ducal  copy  written  by  Lassus  on  parchment  with 
his  own  hand,  and  bound  in  four  volumes 
with  clasps  and  locks  and  shields  and  corners 
so  rich  that  the  silver  alone  weighs  twenty-four 
pounds.  But  the  Penitential  Psalms  would  cer- 
tainly have  been  set  to  music  by  Lassus  in  any 
case,  for  they  are  abrim  and  astir  with  the 
emotions  to  which  his  nature  replied  most  com- 
pletely. Indeed,  when  Duke  Albert  died,  it  was 
in  a  further  set  of  Penitential  Psalms  that  Lassus 
uttered  his  own  grief. 

Like  all  the  great  men  who  have  sorrowed 
nobly,  Orlandus  Lassus  knew  how  to  laugh,  both 
in  his  life  and  in  his  art.  The  black  shadows  of 
death  and  judgment  in  the  Psalms  were  cast  by 
the  bright  lights  of  life  and  human  joy.  Hence 
it  is  not  surprising  that  he  wrote  many  hundreds 
of  tender  or  jovial  songs  and  choruses  in  praise 
of  love  and  wine.  But,  with  the  oncoming  of 
old  age,  the  lights  dwindled  and  the  shadows 
increased.  He  who  had  taken  the  name  of 
"Lassus" — "the  weary  one" — passed  his  last 
years  in  gloom  of  soul.  Honours  had  been 
heaped  upon  him.  The  Emperor  had  invested 
him  with   knighthood,  the  Pope  had  bestowed 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS  69 

upon  him  the  insignia  and  dignities  of  the 
Golden  Spur.  To  the  end  the  Dukes  of  Bavaria 
remained  his  whole-minded  admirers  and  open- 
handed  patrons  and  true-hearted  friends.  His 
wife  and  family  returned  the  great  love  he  bare 
them.  But  the  writing  of  his  thousands  of  works 
and  his  daily  labours  at  church  and  at  Court  had 
made  him  weary  indeed. 

His  contemporaries  believed  that  not  even 
Palestrina  was  the  equal  of  Orlandus  Lassus. 
But  it  is  unnecessary  to  try  and  decide  whether 
they  were  right  or  wrong :  just  as  it  is  unnecessary 
to  pit  Albert  Dilrer  against  Michael  ^\ngelo. 
Lassus  was  a  son  of  the  North  ;  Palestrina  a  son  of 
the  South.  If  the  works  of  Palestrina  were  the 
more  majestic  and  serene,  the  works  of  Lassus 
were  the  more  adventurous  and  strenuous.  But 
such  contrasts  ought  not  to  be  insisted  upon  : 
tor  during  his  fifty  creative  years  Lassus  produced 
works  in  so  many  forms  and  styles  that  he 
refuses  to  be  summed  up  in  two  or  three  clean- 
cut  sentences.  If  a  comparison  with  Palestrina 
must  be  made,  it  is  well  to  confine  it  to  two 
characteristics  of  his  ecclesiastical  music.  As 
regards    the    spirit    of   their    work,    Lassus   was 


70  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

more  of  the  church  militant,  Palestrina  more  of 
the  church  triumphant.  As  regards  the  letter, 
Palestrina  had  the  finer  gift  for  investing  each 
of  the  component  parts,  as  well  as  the  whole, 
of  a  composition  with  melodic  beauty  ;  while 
Lassus  was  often  more  harmonic  than  polyphonic, 
and  subordinated  the  parts  to  the  whole. 

For  readers  who  have  no  opportunities  of 
hearing  or  perusing  the  works  of  Lassus,  a  hint 
of  Mr.  Sterndale  Bennett's  is  better  than  nothing. 
Almost  everybody  has  a  copy  of  Handel's  Mes- 
siah ;  and,  as  Mr.  Sterndale  Bennett  has  happily 
said,  almost  everybody  can  get  some  notion  of 
Orlandus  Lassus,  on  one  side  of  his  work,  by 
turning  to  the  two  short  Messiah  choruses  For  as 
in  Adam  and  Since  by  Man  came  Deaths  which  are 
certainly  not  the  two  weakest  movements  in 
Handel's  strongest  oratorio. 

A  devout  son  of  the  Church,  Lassus  had  made 
a  pilgrimage  in  the  autumn  of  1585  to  the  Holy 
House  of  Loretto  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic. 
In  the  following  year  his  health  began  to  fail. 
Duke  William  presented  him  with  a  country 
house,  at  Geising  on  the  Ammer.  In  1587  the 
Duke    listened    kindly    to    his    chapel- master's 


3  "^i; 


\  BS  5 


S 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS  71 

petition  for  some  relief  from  his  hard  routine, 
and  gave  him  leave  to  reside  at  Geising  with  his 
family  for  part  of  the  year.  In  consideration  of 
these  privileges,  Lassus'  direct  emoluments  were 
reduced  by  200  florins  a  year  ;  but  the  Duke 
was  careful  to  add  : 

On  the  other  hand,  we  appoint  his  son  Ferdinand 
as  a  member  of  our  chapel  at  a  salary  of  200  florins ; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  to  his  other  son  Rudolph,  who 
has  recently  humbly  asked  our  permission  to  marry, 
we  grant  his  request  and  confer  upon  him  the  place 
of  organist  with  a  salary  of  200  florins,  on  condition 
that  he  undertake  the  education  in  singing  and  com- 
position of  the  young  gentlemen  of  the  choir. 

Orlandus  returned  to  his  post  in  1588.  One 
of  his  last  compositions  was  a  Mass  for  the 
Dead,  containing  a  Requiem  Aeternam  so  beautiful 
that  it  is  fair  to  find  in  it  the  weary  one's  own 
prayer  for  rest.  He  died  on  14  June,  1594,  and 
was  buried  in  the  cemetery  of  the  Franciscans. 

A  book  on  the  great  musicians  is  worse  than 
useless  unless  it  can  impel  the  reader  to  hear  the 
great  music.  But  one  must  face  the  fact  that,  in 
by  far  the  larger  number  of  English-speaking 
towns  and  cities,  a  man  who  wishes  to  hear  the 


72  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

grand  works  of  Josquiii  Despres,  of  Orlandus 
Lassus,  of  Palestrina,  of  Sweelinck  and  of  their 
company  must  wish  in  vain. 

There  is  no  need  that  this  widespread  musical 
famine  should  last  for  ever.  The  polyphonic 
masterpieces  are  not  like  the  writings  of  Berlioz 
and  Wagner  and  Tschaikowski,  which  require 
unwieldy  and  expensive  orchestras  for  their  in- 
terpretation. The  materials  for  performing  a 
selection  of  the  psalms  and  motets  of  Lassus  and 
Palestrina  exist  in  nearly  every  parish.  These 
works  are  not  written  to  be  played  by  several 
fiddles  and  flutes  and  trumpets.  They  were 
written  to  be  performed  by  the  most  perfect 
musical  instrument  ever  imagined — that  is  to 
say,  by  several  human  voices.  Further,  they 
were  written  at  a  date  when  musical  notation  had 
become  clear.  It  follows  that  wherever  half  a 
dozen  industrious  enthusiasts  can  be  gathered  to- 
gether the  treasures  of  the  sixteenth  century  can 
be  unlocked. 

Men  and  women  who  are  proficient  upon 
stringed  instruments  delight  in  coming  together 
for  snug  little  chamber-recitals  of  concerted 
music.     It    is   a   pity    that  good   singers   rarely 


ORLANDUS  LASSUS  73 

follow  the  players'  example.  The  country  is 
full  of  gifted  and  well-schooled  amateur  vocalists 
who  do  not  shrink  from  attempting  the  biggest 
songs  in  the  classical  oratorios  and  music-dramas; 
and  yet  it  is  quite  a  rare  event  for  half  a  dozen 
such  vocalists  to  join  forces  in  an  equally  good 
motet  or  madrigal  or  other  ensemble.  Apart 
from  its  high  art  interest,  the  later  sixteenth 
century  repertory  is  a  fountain  of  delights  to 
singers  if  only  because  this  unaccompanied  music 
both  refines  and  emboldens  the  voice  to  an 
astonishing  degree.  Besides,  a  little  band  of 
vocalists  with  a  few  of  the  early  choral  master- 
pieces at  their  tongues'  ends  is  the  most  mobile 
of  musical  forces.  It  has  no  heavy  instruments 
to  carry  about  ;  yet  without  an  ounce  of  apparatus 
it  is  capable  of  recalling  all  the  radiant  freshness 
of  music's  golden  morning. 


PALESTRINA 

CEVEN  leagues  from  the  heart  of  Rome,  upon 
a  hoary  spur  of  the  Apennines,  stands  the 
tumbling  town  called  Palestrina.  But  Palestrina 
is  only  a  modern  and  Christian  name  for  Prae- 
neste,  one  of  the  most  ancient  of  pagan  seats. 
The  crowded  mediaeval  and  Renaissance  buildings 
of  Christian  Palestrina  are  founded  and  grounded 
in  the  giant  substructures  of  a  single  pagan 
temple — the  Temple  of  Fortune,  said  to  have 
been  the  largest  fane  out  of  Asia,  whose  oracle 
drew  to  Praeneste  the  matrons  of  all  Italy. 
When  Rome  was  young,  Praeneste  was  already 
old.  Upon  many  a  battlefield  the  warriors  of 
Praeneste  and  of  Rome  fought — now  as  allies, 
now  as  foes.  When  Rome  waxed  and  Praeneste 
waned,  the  emperors  and  nobles  and  poets  of 
the  Eternal  City  turned  lofty  Praeneste  into  a 
city  of  pleasure.  Hadrian  built  there  a  villa  ; 
Antoninus  a  palace.     Horace   broke   nuts    from 

74 


PALESTRINA  75 

the  tall  stems   of  its  copses   and   plucked   roses 
amid  the  thorns  of  its  gardens. 

Four  hundred  years  ago  Palestrina  was  domi- 
nated by  the  chief  castle  of  its  proud  lords  the 
Colonnas.  The  palace  of  the  Barberini,  which  is 
one  of  the  sights  of  the  place  to-day,  had  not 
been  built ;  but  the  town  was  much  more  im- 
portant at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 
than  it  is  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth. 
Among  its  inhabitants  were  Sante  Pierluigi  and 
his  wife,  Maria  Gismondi,  a  peasant-pair  who 
seem  to  have  been  honest,  but  not  (as  some 
writers  have  suggested)  grindingly  poor.  A  few 
years  ago  the  will  of  Sante  Pierluigi's  mother 
was  brought  to  light.  To  Sante  and  his  brother 
Francesco  the  old  lady  bequeathed  a  house  in 
Palestrina,  conditionally  on  their  providing  cer- 
tain money  for  their  sisters  Nobilia  and  Lucrezia. 
Further,  she  left  behind  her  so  huge  a  store  of 
mattresses,  bed-linen,  and  cooking  utensils,  that 
Signor  Cametti  (who  discovered  her  will  and 
testament)   suggests^  she   may   have   carried   on 

1  In  the  Ri-vista  Musicale  ItaUana,  V'ol.  X  (1903),  p.  517.  These  details 
are  given  because  the  fables  about  Palestrina's  poverty  have  been  lately  re- 
coined  in  several  publications. 


7  6  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

the  business  of  an  innkeeper.     Maria  Gismondi 

also  was  possessed  of  property. 

To  this  couple  was  born,  probably  in  1526,  a 
son  named  by  his  parents  Giovanni  Pierluigi.  It 
may  or  may  not  be  true  that  the  child  partly  owed 
his  sense  of  beauty  and  grandeur  to  the  fact  that 
the  air  he  breathed  was  charged  with  the  natural 
loveliness  and  historic  glory  of  old  Praeneste  ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  he  gave  back  more  to  his 
native  town  than  it  had  given  to  him.  Millions 
to  whom  its  very  name  would  otherwise  be  un- 
known are  familiar  with  it,  simply  because  its 
most  famous  son  grew  up  to  be  known  as 
Giovanni  Pierluigi  da  Palestrina,  "John  Peter 
Louis  of  Palestrina" — in  Latin,  Joannes^  Petra- 
loysius  Praenestinus. 

Like  Orlandus  Lassus,  Giovanni  Pierluigi  da 
Palestrina  learned  the  art  and  craft  of  composing 
music  by  spending  some  years  in  performing 
it.  It  was  soon  discovered  that  he  "  had  a 
voice,"  and  his  mother  is  said  to  have  sold  a  plot 
of  land  so  as  to  provide  for  her  boy's  musical 
training.     The  family  conclave  concerning  Gio- 

1  His  grandmother's  will,  dated  1527,  bequeathed  to  '"Jo"  (i.e.  Joannes) 
a  mattress  and  ten  pewter  dishes. 


PALESTRINA  77 

vanni's  choice  of  a  career  appears  to  have  been 
held  about  1539  ;  and  it  is  on  this  ground  that 
1524  (as  given  by  Palestrina's  enthusiastic  bio- 
grapher Baini)  seems  more  plausible  as  the  date 
of  his  birth  than  15 14 — the  date  favoured  by 
several  later  historians.^  That  the  pupil's  serious 
musical  education  should  not  have  begun  till  he 
was  twenty-five  years  old  is  unlikely  in  the 
extreme.  Indeed,  he  himself  declared,  in  dedicat- 
ing one  of  his  compositions  to  Sixtus  V,  that  he 
had  been  devoted  from  boyhood  to  the  study  and 
to  the  diligent  practice  of  music. 

From  the  limestone  height  on  which  their  town 
was  built,  the  citizens  of  Palestrina  could  gaze 
across  the  Campagna  to  the  walls  and  towers  of 
Rome.  Only  a  dozen  years  had  passed  since 
the  sack  of  the  city  by  the  Constable  de  Bourbon ; 
but  already  the  eye  could  rest  upon  proud  sights. 
Old  St.  Peter's  was  still  standing ;  but  around  its 
crumbling    stones   the   enormous   walls  of  Bra- 


^  e.g.  Kandler  and  Baumker,  who  were  misled  by  the  inscription  Fixit 
prope  octcgenarius  ("He  lived  to  be  nearly  an  octogenarian")  on  the  frame 
of  a  portrait  in  the  pontifical  archives.  This  inscription,  however,  turns 
out  to  be  of  later  date.  In  1886,  Dr.  Haberl  found  in  the  same  archives 
a  note  by  an  eye-witness  of  Palestrina's  funeral  to  the  effect  that  the 
musician  lived  sixty-eight  years,  thus  fixing  the  date  of  his  birth  as  1526. 


78  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

mante's  vast  basilica  had  already  begun  to  rise. 
Paul  III  was  seated  on  the  throne  of  the  Fisher- 
man ;  and,  although  Raphael  had  been  dead  for 
twenty  years,  the  artistic  life  of  Rome  was  still  in 
full  flow,  and  Michael  Angelo  was  hard  at  work 
finishing  The  Last  Judgment. 

Music,  however,  was  lagging  behind.  All 
the  leading  musicians  in  the  city  were  Belgians, 
Spaniards,  and  Frenchmen.  That  these  men  were 
non-Italians  matters  not  at  all.  The  point  is 
that  their  music  was  not  as  grandly  conceived 
and  as  finely  executed  as  the  contemporary  Italian 
architecture,  sculpture,  and  painting.  It  was  the 
hour  for  a  Man,  and  the  man  came.  In  1540 
the  peasant's  son  from  wind-swept  Praeneste 
descended  to  the  banks  of  the  Tiber. 

The  pitiless  blast  of  modern  research  has 
blown  away  almost  all  the  statements  of  the 
dictionaries  and  encyclopaedias  as  to  the  sources 
of  young  Pierluigi's  musical  education  in  Rome. 
Until  recently  there  was  a  picturesque  tradition 
that  the  lad  acquired  the  Netherlander  technique 
of  composition  from  the  Fleming,  Claude  Gou- 
dimel  (who  ultimately  became  a  Huguenot),  and 
that  he  caught  the  grand   style  from   Orlandus 


PALESTRINA  79 

Lassus,  "  at  that  time  chapel-master  of  St.  John 
Lateran."  It  seems  certain,  however,  that  Gou- 
dimel  was  never  in  Rome,  and  it  is  probable 
that  Orlandus  Lassus  had  nothing  to  do  with 
St.  John  Lateran  until  Palestrina  was  the  father 
of  a  family  and  fairly  launched  in  his  pro- 
fession. M.  Brenet^  has  elaborately  developed 
the  suggestion  that  Palestrina's  master  was 
Tommaso  Cimello  ;  but  the  one  sure  fact  is 
that,  whoever  may  have  been  his  masters, 
Palestrina  was  schooled  in  Netherlander  ways  of 
composition. 

In  1544  the  youth  returned  to  his  native 
town  as  a  practising  musician.  His  contract 
with  the  cathedral  chapter  still  exists.  In  ex- 
change for  the  income  of  a  canonry,  he  engaged 
himselt,  for  life,  to  be  present  every  day  at  mass, 
vespers,  and  compline,  and  to  teach  singing  to 
the  canons  and  choristers. 

Like  John  Sebastian  Bach,  one  of  the  few 
musicians  who  can  be  mentioned  with  him  in 
the  same  breath,  Palestrina  spent  years  directing 
the  daily  services  and  dinning  the  rudiments 
of   music    into    the    small    heads    of   choristers. 

^  Palestrina.     Par  Michel  Brenet,  Paris,  1906, 


8o  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

The  work  may  have  been  tiresome  but  it  was 
not  a  waste  of  labour  :  for  when,  many  years 
after,  the  time  came  for  Palestrina  to  under- 
take the  reform  of  church  music,  it  must  have 
been  an  incalculable  advantage  to  have  become 
saturated  with  the  sacred  liturgy,  not  only  at 
the  Vatican  basilica  of  St.  Peter  and  at  St.  John 
Lateran,  '*the  mother  and  head  of  all  the 
churches  of  the  City  and  of  the  world,"  but  in 
the  homely  cathedral  of  a  small  hill-town  as 
well. 

Modest  to  a  fault,  Palestrina  did  not  foresee 
his  fame.  In  1548  he  married.  To  marry  was 
to  forfeit  nine-tenths  of  one's  chances  as  regards 
the  great  musical  appointments  in  Rome  ;  for 
unmarried  singers  were  preferred,  partly  for 
reasons  of  ecclesiastical  discipline,  and  partly  out 
of  reverence  for  the  divine  praises  of  which  the 
singers  were,  so  to  speak,  the  celebrants  and 
ministers.  But  although  Palestrina  appears  to 
have  married  without  realizing  that  he  was  there- 
by imperilling  a  resplendent  career,  it  does  not 
follow  that  a  clear  vision  of  his  future  would 
have  held  him  back  ;  for  his  marriage  was  a 
marriage    of    affection.       Lucrezia,     his     bride, 


PALESTRINA  8i 

brought  him  not  only  a  serviceable  dowry,  but  a 
person  which  pleased  him  and  a  heart  which 
became  one  with  his  own.  Their  deeply  happy 
union  endured  for  more  than  thirty  years. 

Probably  the  engagement  "  for  life  "  with  the 
chapter  of  his  native  town  was  a  one-sided  bar- 
gain by  which  the  chapter  was  bound  to  retain 
Pierluigi  as  long  as  he  was  happy  in  the  cathedral- 
church  of  St.  Agapitus,  but  powerless  to  hold 
him  any  longer  than  he  wished  to  stay.  He 
served  seven  years,  and  then  turned  his  face 
once  more  to  the  Eternal  City. 

The  Roman  progress  of  Palestrina  as  a  recog- 
nized musician  began  in  1551,  when  he  became 
master  of  the  Cappella  Giulia.  His  full  Italian 
title,  maestro  di  cappella  dell  a  basilica  vatic  ana^ 
resounded  so  magniloquently  that  the  six  scudi 
which  made  up  his  monthly  salary  clinked  rather 
meanly  in  comparison.  Allowing  for  the  altered 
purchasing-power  of  money,  six  scudi  a  month 
would  be  about  equal  to  two  English  pounds  a 
week.  But  the  young  chapel-master  was  satisfied 
with  his  lot.  Within  three  years  of  his  arrival 
in  Rome  he  had  written  and  printed  a  volume  of 
five  masses,  which  he  dedicated  to  Julius  III,  the 

F 


82  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

reigning  pontiff.^  Julius  was  pleased  ;  and  in 
January,  1555,  he  appointed  Palestrina  as  one  of 
the  pontifical  singers  in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  with 
an  increased  stipend. 

As  everybody  knows  who  has  had  intimate 
dealings  with  them,  the  singers  in  church  choirs 
are  the  most  easily  ruffled  of  men.  The  choir 
of  the  Sistine  Chapel  was  no  excep'-'on,  and 
Palestrina's  advent  was  warmly  resented.  So  far 
as  they  went,  the  singers'  objections  were  not 
unreasonable.  Their  constitution  was  explicit, 
and  they  maintained  that  even  the  Holy  Father 
himself  had  no  right  to  thrust  a  new  member  into 
their  body  without  the  prescribed  examination. 
Moreover,  Palestrina's  voice  was  not  satisfactory. 
Their  Spanish  secretary  recorded  a  protest  in  the 
minutes,  and  the  choirmen  generally  turned  cold 
shoulders  upon  their  new  colleague.  Unhappily, 
Pope  Julius  died  only  a  few  weeks  after  he  had 
taken  Palestrina  under  his  protection.  To  Pope 
Julius  succeeded  Marcellus  II,  whose  reign  lasted 
no  more  than  twenty-three  days.     The   summer 


^  The  plate  facing  this  page  is  a  photographic  facsimile  of  the  title-page 
of  Palestrina's  first  book  of  masses.  The  photograph  has  been  specially 
made  for  this  work  from  the  1572  edition  in  the  British  Museum. 


Title-page  of  Palestrix.vs  First  Book  of  Masses. 


PALESTRINA  83 

had  hardly  begun  before  Marcellus'  successor,  the 
energetic  and  thoroughgoing  Paul  IV,  was  hard 
at  work  on  the  reforms  which  distinguished  his 
pontificate.  His  zeal  began  at  home,  in  his  own 
Sistine  Chapel.  Inquiry  showed  that  two  other 
singers  as  well  as  Palestrina  were  married  men  ; 
and  by  the  last  day  of  July  the  strict  letter  of  the 
Chapel's  law  had  been  enforced  and  the  trio  had 
been  cast  out.  The  iron  hand  of  the  reforming 
Paul  struck,  however,  in  a  velvet  glove  ;  for  a 
pension  of  six  scudi  a  month  was  granted  to  each 
one  of  the  ejected  three. 

At  so  sorry  and  sudden  an  ending  to  his  good 
fortune,  the  gentle  Palestrina  sickened  and  took 
to  his  bed.  There  is  only  one  Sistine  Chapel  ; 
and  the  moment  of  losing  one's  place  therein 
must  be  one  of  the  few  moments  when  even 
the  healthiest  and  most  sanguine  of  men  cannot 
easily  comfort  himself  by  saying  that  there  are 
as  good  fish  in  the  sea  as  ever  were  taken  out 
of  it.  It  is  true  that  the  Pope's  action  had 
delivered  the  proud  and  sensitive  Italian  from 
the  pin -pricks  of  the  jealous  Iberians  and 
Netherlanders  who  were  his  fellow  -  singers  ; 
but,   as  Palestrina  looked  from  his  sick-bed  at 


84  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

his  three  little  children,  this  was  meagre  con- 
solation. 

The  cloud  soon  sailed  away.  Within  a  few 
weeks  of  his  humiliation,  the  rejected  of  the 
Sistine  Chapel  found  himself  chapel-master  of 
St.  John  Lateran,  the  proud  and  renowned 
basilica  where  the  young  Orlandus  Lassus  had 
so  lately  directed  the  music.  As  Paul  IV  did 
not  withdraw  his  pension,  Palestrina's  revenues 
sufficed  for  the  upkeep  of  a  pleasant  little  home 
on  the  Coelian  Hill,  where  he  was  near  to  his 
work  at  the  Lateran  but  far  from  the  turmoil 
of  Rome.  This  tranquillity  endured  for  five 
years. 

The  eleven  Popes  who  ruled  the  Church  dur- 
ing the  four-and-forty  years  of  Palestrina's  life 
in  Rome  differed  one  from  another  in  countless 
respects ;  but  they  were  all  of  one  mind  concern- 
ing the  musician  from  old  Praeneste.  Even 
Marcellus  II  seems  to  have  spent  a  fraction  of 
his  three  weeks'  reign  in  showing  kindness  to 
the  young  chapel-master,  as  appears  from  the 
grateful  naming  of  the  famous  Mass  of  Pope  Mar- 
cellus. Pius  IV,  in  whose  pontificate  this  mass 
was   performed,   praised  it   in  words   of  stately 


PALESTRINA  85 

eloquence,  and  declared  that  John  Peter  Louis 
of  Palestrina  was  a  new  John  bringing  down  to 
the  church  militant  the  harmonies  of  that  "  new 
song  "  which  John  the  Apostle  heard  in  the  holy 
city  of  the  church  triumphant,  Gregory  XIII, 
the  musician-pope  at  whose  feet  Palestrina  laid 
the  MSS.  of  his  grandest  motets,  entrusted  him 
with  the  sacred  task  of  revising  the  ancient  chant. 
Nor  was  all  this  papal  patronage  merely  good- 
natured  or  undiscriminating.  When,  in  1585, 
Palestrina  made  too  much  haste  to  flatter  the 
newly-elected  Sixtus  V  by  inscribing  to  him  a 
hurried  and  uninspired  composition,  the  pontiff 
remarked,  with  keen  critical  discernment,  that 
the  musician  appeared  to  have  mixed  together 
parts  of  his  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus  with  bits  of  his 
Motets  on  the  Song  of  Solomon}  But,  in  speaking 
so,  Sixtus  was  not  indulging  the  small-mindedness 
of  a  weak  man  anxious  to  differ  at  all  costs  from 
his  predecessors  ;  for  when,  two  years  later, 
Palestrina  produced  his  beautiful  mass,  Assiimpta 
est  Maria,  the  enthusiasm  of  Sixtus  took  a  practi- 
cal form. 

^  "7/  Pierluigi  ha  dimenticato  la  Messa  di  Papa  Marcello  ed  i  Motetti  delta 
Cantica" 


86  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Under  this  high  and  enlightened  patronage 
Palestrina  worked  five  years  at  the  Lateran,  ten 
at  the  Liberian  Chapel  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore, 
and  twenty-three  at  St.  Peter's.  At  St.  Peter's, 
of  course,  this  was  his  second  term  as  chapel- 
master  ;  but  it  lasted  from  1571  to  the  day  of 
his  death.  From  the  fact  that  he  was  able,  in 
1577,  to  give  his  daughter-in-law  thirteen  hun- 
dred scudi,  and  from  the  further  fact  that  he  is 
known  to  have  bought  land  and  houses  and  vine- 
yards in  and  about  Rome,  it  is  evident  that  he 
was  not  underpaid.  Palestrina  was  not  continu- 
ously and  perfectly  happy  ;  for  continuous  and 
perfect  happiness  is  never  to  be  thought  of  in 
the  case  of  a  professional  musician  compelled  by 
circumstances  to  rub  against  other  professional 
musicians  every  day.  But,  broadly  speaking,  he 
was  happy  in  his  work,  in  his  home,  and  in  his 
friendships.  Himself  a  devout  believer,  he 
counted  among  his  intimate  friends  two  saints 
whom  the  Church  has  already  canonized — Saint 
Carlo  Borromeo  and  Saint  Philip  Neri.  Yet 
neither  worldly  glory  nor  unworldly  piety  staled 
or  withered  his  homely  affections.  At  the  jubilee 
of  1575,  Gregory  XIII  being  Pope,  when  fifteen 


PALESTRINA  87 

hundred  pilgrims  from  the  city  of  Palestrina 
descended  the  hills  and  tramped  over  the  Cam- 
pagna,  it  was  their  old  townsman  Giovanni 
Pierluigi  who  led  their  songs  as  they  entered 
Rome,  their  maidens  clad  in  white  and  their 
youths  bearing  boughs  of  olive/ 

So  much  for  Palestrina's  unexciting  life.  It  is 
time  to  speak  of  his  work.  The  matter  bristles 
with  controversy ;  but  the  reader  who  takes  the 
trouble  to  consider  it  will  not  complain  that  he 
has  wasted  his  time.  To  understand  the  achieve- 
ment of  Palestrina  is  to  understand  many  other 
things  which  are  too  vaguely  known  to  the 
majority  of  musical  people. 

Stated  briefly,  it  is  the  traditional  glory  of 
Palestrina  that  he  became  "  the  saviour  of 
church  music  "  by  composing  the  Mass  of  Pope 
Marcellus  at  the  moment  when  the  Council  of 
Trent  had  all  but  decided   to  banish  from  the 


1  The  town  of  Palestrina  is  still  proud  of  its  illustrious  son,  but  his 
works  are  even  less  studied  by  the  citizens  than  are  the  tragedies  of 
Shakespeare  by  the  natives  of  Stratford-on-Avon.  At  the  Palestrina  ter- 
centenary in  1894  it  is  true  that  the  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus  was  sung  at 
St.  Agapitus  in  the  morning,  but  the  chief  attractions  were  a  tombola,  a 
horse-race,  and  a  display  of  lireworks. 


88  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

sanctuary  every  kind  of  music  save  the  liturgical 
chant.  During  the  nineteenth  century  there 
arose,  however,  learned  writers  who  declared  that 
this  tradition  was  baseless  from  beginning  to 
end,  and  that  the  writings  of  Palestrina  are 
honourable  only  on  their  intrinsic  merits. 

JBefore  Palestrina's  part  in  the  so-called  salva- 
tion of  church  music  can  be  discussed,  the 
matter  as  a  whole  calls  for  a  rather  long  com- 
mentary. It  is  necessary,  first  of  all,  to  describe 
the  condition  of  church  music  at  the  time  when 
Palestrina  is  alleged  to  have  saved  it. 

For  the  sake  of  brevity,  the  inquiry  must  be 
confined  to  the  music  of  the  Mass.  Theological 
arguments  can  have  no  place  in  this  book  ;  but  it 
is  a  simple  historical  fact,  beyond  all  reasonable 
controversy,  that  during  the  period  about  to  be 
discussed  (that  is  to  say,  from  the  thirteenth 
century  to  the  sixteenth).  Mass,  or  the  celebration 
of  the  Holy  Eucharist,  connoted  at  least  two 
beliefs  concerning  which  Christendom  has  ceased 
to  be  agreed.  The  Mass  was  not  merely  a 
communion-service  in  commemoration  of  the 
Lord's  death  ;  it  was  also  the  crowning  mystery 
of  faith,  wherein  "  the  Word  made  flesh,"  by  the 


PALESTRINA  89 

miracle  of  Transubstantiation,  was  daily  offered 
up  as  an  ineffable  sacrifice  for  the  dead  and  for 
the  living.  Holding  fast  to  so  tremendous  an 
article  of  faith,  it  was  natural  that  the  mediaeval 
Church  should  build  her  altars  of  marble  and 
that  she  should  surround  with  sweet  flowers  and 
twinkling  lights  and  lingering  incense  the  golden 
tabernacle  which  was  to  her  "  the  place  where  the 
Lord  lay."  And  it  was  inevitable  that  music 
should  claim  a  place  amid  all  this  pomp  and 
circumstance. 

Although  the  music  at  High  Mass  flows  on 
almost  unbrokenly  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  the  celebration,  comparatively  few  of  the 
sacred  words  are  sung/  The  celebrant  at  the 
altar  reads  the  various  prayers  rapidly,  and 
the  worshippers  in  the  nave  follow  him  silently 
in  their  books  of  devotion,  while  the  choir  pro- 
tracts the  few  sung  portions.  To  be  precise,  the 
choir  sings  only  the  three  Greek  words  in  the 


^  Throughout  the  above  paragraph,  only  the  "Ordinary"  of  the  Mass 
is  reterred  to,  i.e.  the  part  of  the  Mass  which  is  the  same  every  day.  The 
"Proper"  of  any  given  day's  Mass  consists  of  prayers  and  lessons  "proper" 
to  some  particular  feast.  In  the  larger  churches,  the  choir  sings  part  of 
the  "Proper,"  but  always  to  plain-chant.  From  a  composer's  point  of 
view,  a  Mass  contains  only  the  sung  portions  of  the  "  Ordinary." 


90  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Kyrie  eleison ;  the  hymn  Gloria  in  Excelsis  Deo ; 
the  Creed  ;  the  five  short  sentences  of  Sanctus 
and  Benedictus ;  the  three  sentences  o^  Agnus  Dei; 
and  a  few  Amens  and  responses.  When  a  com- 
poser is  said  to  have  "  written  a  Mass,"  all  that 
is  meant  is  that  he  has  set  to  music  a  libretto 
containing  the  six  numbers  just  mentioned.^  It 
follows  that  his  treatment  of  the  text  must  be 
broad.  For  example,  his  Benedictus  ought  to 
continue  while  the  celebrant  is  saying  all  the  five 
prayers  which  divide  the  Consecration  from  the 
Pater  Noster ;  and  yet  the  Benedictus  contains 
only  nine  Latin  words. 

It  seems  to  have  been  in  the  Cathedral  of 
Tournai,  the  church  whose  towers  still  look  down 
upon  the  lazy  Scheldt,  that  a  musician's  mass  first 
took  the  place  of  the  ancient  chant  for  the  ren- 
dering of  the  sung  portions  of  the  eucharistic 
service.  This  was  in  the  thirteenth  century. 
The  fashion  spread  ;  and,  as  was  stated  in  the 
preceding  chapter  on  Orlandus  Lassus,  by  the 
fifteenth    century    the    masses    of    certain    com- 

1  Many  masses  by  well-known  composers  contain  five  numbers  only. 
The  Creed  does  not  form  part  of  every  day's  celebration  of  Mass,  and 
accordingly  it  is  absent  from  certain  musical  settings. 


PALESTRINA  91 

posers  were  being  sung  all  over  western  Chris- 
tendom. 

Following    an    admirable    custom,    the    early 
mass-writers  used  to  build  the  whole  of  a  mass, 
from   Kyrie  eleison  to  Agnus  Dei,  upon  the  same 
melody  or  theme,  thus   obtaining  a  dignity  and 
unity  of  effect  in  praiseworthy  contrast  with  the 
too  tuneful  and  restless  masses  so  recently  con- 
demned by  Pius  X.     This  theme  or  melody  was 
not  invented  by  the  composer  himself,  but  was 
taken  from  the  rich  treasury  of  the  plain-chant. 
In  certain  cases  this  was  an  eminently  devotional 
course  to  follow.    Take,  for  example,  the  melody 
of  the  old  plain-song  hymn  to  the  Holy  Ghost, 
Vent    Creator    SpirituSy   which    hymn    is    familiar 
nowadays    to    all    denominations    of   Christians. 
By  making  this  melody,  associated  as  it  was  in 
everybody's  mind  with  Whit-Sunday,  the  basis 
of  his  mass  of  the  feast  of  Pentecost  a  composer 
was  able  to  write  music  which  helped  the  hearer 
to  enter  more  deeply  into  the  spirit  of  the  feast 
instead  of  distracting  his  thoughts  from  it.^ 

1  Wagner  in  his  Ka'ncrmanch  strengthened  his  appeal  to  German  hearts 
by  using  the  theme  of  £/«'  feue  Burg.  Schumann,  at  the  end  of  The  Two 
Grenadiers,  put  the  hearer  in  touch  with  Republican  and  Imperial  memories 
by  employing  La  Marsei/laise.  A  Mass  based  on  Assumpta  est  Maria,  if 
sung  on  the  Feast  of  the  Assumption,  '.voulii  have  a  similar  effect. 


92  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

So  far  all  was  well.  But  composers  soon 
wearied  of  using  the  same  themes  over  and  over 
again,  and  accordingly  they  turned  for  inspiration 
from  the  church  to  the  world.  For  the  canto 
fermo  or  prevailing  melody  of  his  new  mass  a 
composer  would  boldly  adopt  the  tune  of  some 
secular  song.  Innumerable  masses,  for  example, 
were  constructed  on  the  fine  theme  of  a  popular 
air  called  The  Armed  Man.  Within  decent  limits 
there  was  nothing  very  dreadful  about  this  new 
departure.  Four  or  five  hundred  years  ago  the 
line  between  sacred  and  secular  things  was  not 
always  strongly  drawn.  The  little  houses  clus- 
tered snugly  round  the  soaring  churches,  and  the 
pains  and  pleasures  and  tasks  of  the  people  were 
all  blent  with  their  religion.  In  Latin  countries, 
even  at  the  present  day,  no  one  sees  harm  in 
practices  which  shock  Anglo-Saxons  as  irreverent. 
For  instance,  a  poor  gardener's  wife  thinks  it  no 
sacrilege  to  clatter  with  her  baskets  into  the 
ever-open  church  on  a  market-day  morning  to 
pray  tor  good  trade.  No  grave  scandal  was  in- 
volved, therefore,  in  the  use  of  secular  melodies 
for  ecclesiastical  purposes  so  long  as  the  melodies 
were    in    themselves    decorous    and    the    music 


PALESTRINA  93 

made  from  them  was  reverent  and  edifying/ 
Unhappily,  however,  composers  did  not  know 
where  to  stop.  A  few  of  them,  unrestrained  by 
piety  or  good  taste,  shamelessly  seized  upon 
popular  airs  which  were  associated  with  flippant 
or  even  lewd  words.  Worst  of  all,  some  of  the 
singers,  through  force  of  habit  or  indolence  or 
downright  perversity,  sometimes  sang  the  profane 
words  of  the  secular  songs  instead  of  the  sacred 
texts  of  the  divine  liturgy.  This,  without  doubt, 
was  the  most  glaring  of  the  evils  with  which  the 
Sacred  Council  of  Trent  was  confronted  when  it 
addressed  itself  to  the  question  of  church-music."^ 
The  second  evil  to  which  the  Council  bent  its 
mind  was  less  painful  and  scandalous,  but  was 
still  very  great.     Even  if  the  Latin  words  of  the 

1  The  borrowing  of  the  world's  music  by  the  Church  has  not  been  con- 
fined to  the  ages  before  Palestrina.  On  the  homely  principle  of  "  not  let- 
ting the  Devil  have  all  the  best  tunes,"  religious  reformers  have  often 
proceeded  in  this  way.  The  official  "tune-book"  of  one  of  the  largest 
religious  bodies  in  Great  Britain  up  to  three  years  ago  contained  many 
secular  airs,  including  psalm-tunes  adapted  from  Beethoven's  Sonatas  and 
also  the  familiar  music  to  'Drin^to  me  only  •with  thine  eyes. 

2  Deplorable  as  was  this  scandal,  its  extent  has  been  much  exaggerated. 
The  secular  melodies  used  by  the  mass-composers  generally  received  a  musical 
treatment  which  made  them  unrecognizable  by  the  congregation.  Again, 
some  of  the  songs  were  not  widely  known.  It  is  impossible,  for  instance, 
to  trace  the  words  of  The  Armed  Man,  although  its  melody  was  more  used 
than  any  other  by  mass-writers. 


94  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

Missal  and  the  ancient  melodies  of  the  Gradual 
and  Antiphoner  had  been  punctiliously  retained, 
a  great  deal  of  the  current  church-music  would 
still  have  been  objectionable  because  it  was  not 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  Instead 
of  simplicity,  earnestness,  tenderness,  it  was 
marked  by  complexity,  affectation,  hardness. 
Like  sundry  choirmasters  of  our  own  day,  too 
many  of  the  sixteenth-century  chapel-masters 
assumed  that  religion  was  made  for  church-music 
and  not  church  music  for  religion.  To  their 
minds  the  Christian  year,  with  its  changing  phases 
of  solemnity  and  ecstasy,  was  merely  a  string  of 
occasions  for  musical  display.  Music  ceased  to 
be  the  means  and  became  the  end  of  their  church- 
manship.  And  whenever  music  or  any  other 
art  becomes  self-contained  it  turns  sour.  It  was 
so  in  the  century  of  Palestrina.  The  musicians 
made  music  for  one  another  instead  of  for  men 
and  women  at  large.  Their  works,  including 
their  settings  of  the  Mass,  abounded  in  elaborate 
devices  which  only  the  initiated  could  under- 
stand.^     Indeed,  so  jealous    and    contemptuous 

'   As  far  back  as  1322  Pope  John  XXII,  in  spite  of  his  eighty-two  years, 
issued  a  vigorous  decree  from  Avignon  denouncing  the  beginnings  of  these 


PALESTRINA  95 

of  outsiders  did  the  musicians  become  that  some 
of  them  prepared  their  MSS.  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  them  unintelligible  save  to  readers  who 
had  the  key  to  the  riddle.  For  instance,  there 
was  a  MS.  inscribed  Respice  me^  ostende  mihi  faciem 
tuam  ("  Behold  me,  shew  me  thy  face "),  which 
meant  that  the  singers  were  to  face  one  another 
holding  opposite  edges  of  the  paper,  one  half 
of  the  music  having  been  written  upside  down. 
Other  works  were  so  constructed  as  to  be  sung 
both  backwards  and  forwards.^  Again,  there 
was  music  in  notes  of  different  colours,  each 
colour  conveying  a  meaning.  And  there  was 
music  written  like  certain  poems  of  George 
Herbert  and  his  contemporaries,  in  the  shapes 
of  altars,  rainbows,  and  crosses.  The  ingenuity 
and  patience  lavished  on  these  productions  were 
stupendous;    but    their     heartless    and    tedious 


abuses.  He  complained  that  "  through  the  multitude  of  the  notes  .  .  . 
the  seemly  ascents  and  temperate  descents  of  the  plain-chant  are  obscured  "; 
that  the  voices  "  run  hither  and  thither  intoxicating  the  ear  .  .  .  whereby 
desirable  devotion  is  contemned  and  deplorable  wantonness  increased."  He 
also  emphasized  the  evil  effects  of  irreligious  church-music  on  the  minds  of 
the  singers. 

^  The  incredulous  reader  may  as  well  be  told  that  the  music-sellers  still 
keep  in  stock  a  pianoforte-piece  by  Moscheles,  called  The  Way  of  the  World, 
which  can  be  played  either  downside  up  or  upside  down. 


96  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

cleverness  made  them  obstacles  rather  than  aids 
to  Christian  devotion.  Indeed,  devotion  was 
so  far  from  the  singers'  thoughts  that  some  of 
them  never  sang  any  words  at  all,  but  merely 
vocalized  their  parts  upon  a  single  vowel- 
sound,  as  if  they  were  singing  instrumental 
music.  And,  while  thus  undevotionally  em- 
ployed, sundry  empty-pated  choirmen  were  wont 
to  throw  themselves  into  the  ostentatious  pos- 
tures with  which  long-haired  charlatans  delight 
foolish  audiences  in  the  concert -halls  of  our 
own  day. 

After  what  has  been  said  in  the  chaptei  on 
Orlandus  Lassus,  of  course  the  reader  will 
understand  that  not  all  the  mass  music  and 
choirs  were  thus  unprofitable  or  scandalous. 
The  libraries  of  the  greater  churches  contained 
many  masses,  which  were  reverential  as  well  as 
ingenious,  and  hundreds  of  choristers  were 
earnest  men.  But  the  proportion  of  dry  or 
inscrutable  or  indecorous  works  was  far  too 
great,  and  the  army  of  unspiritual  choirmen 
was  too  well  recruited.  Even  Lassus  and 
Palestrina  themselves  had  written  masses  in 
the  Netherlander   style  which    deserved    strong 


PALESTRINA  97 

reproof,    and    many    of  the    singers    who    sang 
them  made  bad  worse. 

At  a  full  sitting  of  the  Sacred  Council  of 
Trent  in  1562,  as  portrayed  by  the  brush  of 
Titian  in  the  painting  reproduced  on  the  fol- 
lowing leaf,  the  disorderly  state  of  ecclesias- 
tical music  was  solemnly  considered.  Accord- 
ing to  some  writers  the  reverend  councillors 
were  anxious  to  banish  from  the  churches  all 
music  save  the  plain-chant.  This  is  false.^  To 
recoil  into  Puritan  extremes  was  not  the  Church's 
way.  The  Church  had  no  more  intention  of 
stifling  music  than  of  burning  the  altar-pieces 
of  Raphael  and  replacing  them  by  flatly-painted 
works  in  the  archaic  style  of  the  Catacombs. 
She  aimed  not  at  Music's  death,  but  at  Music's 
health  and  strength  and  beauty.  Above  all,  the 
Council  was  determined  to  lead  church-music 
into  her  proper  place  as  the  handmaid  of  re- 
ligion rather  than  as  religion's  spoilt  and  tur- 
bulent child. 

The   Council    naturally  began    by   forbidding 

1  The  language  of  the  Council  in  its  twenty-second  session  is  conclusive 
on  this  point.     The  Council  did  not  mention  polyphony,  but  simply  con- 
demned organ  music  and  sung  music  mixed  with  impure  elements,  as  well 
as  unbecoming  actions  on  the  part  of  the  singers, 
G 


98  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  admixture  of  mundane  elements  with  the 
Church's  holy  song.  So  far  the  task  was  simple. 
But  the  reform  of  music  on  its  technical  side  was 
a  thornier  problem.  The  Fathers  were  persuaded 
that  the  elaborate  masses  of  the  Netherlander 
school  were  doing  more  harm  than  good  ;  but 
they  were  bishops,  not  chapel-masters,  and  their 
difficulty  was  to  find  a  new  musical  language  in 
which  devotion  might  be  more  warmly  and 
simply,  and  yet  grandly  expressed.  In  short, 
they  had  to  bring  the  church  musicians  into 
line  with  the  church  architects  and  the  church 
painters. 

In  1564,  Pius  IV  named  a  commission  of 
eight  cardinals,  and  charged  them  with  the 
duty  of  carrying  the  Council's  will  into  effect. 
At  least  two  of  the  eight,  Cardinals  Vitel- 
lozzo  Vitellozzi  and  Carlo  Borromeo,  were 
musicians. 

So  far  it  is  a  plain  tale.  But  when  we  come 
to  the  question  of  Palestrina's  connexion  with 
the  affair,  we  are  brought  to  a  perplexed  halt 
between  romancing  on  one  side  and  excessive 
scepticism  on  the  other. 

Eighty  years  ago  a  priest,  Giuseppe  Baini  by 


O     V 


PALESTRINA  99 

name,  published  in  Rome  two  quarto  volumes  of 
four  hundred  pages  each  devoted  to  Palestrina. 
The  work  had  a  European  success.  Victor  Hugo, 
on  the  strength  of  it,  penned  his  famous  and 
foolish  lines  apostrophizing  Palestrina  as  "  the 
father  of  harmony."  Taine  revelled  in  it  un- 
critically and  reprinted  its  wildest  anecdotes. 
Thirty  years  ago  a  reaction  began  which  has 
been  carried  too  far,  and  to-day  Baini  is  often 
set  aside  in  forgetfulness  of  his  many  merits 
and  of  the  fact  that  he  lived  a  hundred  years 
nearer  than  ourselves  to  the  fountain-heads  of 
tradition. 

According  to  the  story  as  Baini  tells  it,  their 
Eminences  turned  to  Palestrina  and  besoupfht 
him  to  attempt  a  mass  in  which  the  sacred 
words  should  be  clearly  heard  throughout,  in 
union  with  polyphonic  music  which  all  might 
understand.  Palestrina  felt  the  heaviness  of 
his  responsibility.  Face  to  face  with  issues 
so  vast  he  did  not  dare  to  risk  failure  with  a 
single  mass.  He  composed  three,  labouring 
at  them  prayerfully,  lovingly,  humbly.  On 
the  first  he  wrote  Illumina  oculos  meos,  "  Enlighten 
Thou  my  eyes."     The  third  he  inscribed  with 


loo  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the    revered    name    of   his    dead    patron,    Pope 

Marcellus.^ 

Baini's  account  boldly  goes  on  to  declare  that 
on  the  last  Sunday  in  April,  1565,  the  eight  car- 
dinals of  the  commission  assembled  at  the  house  of 
Cardinal  Vitellozzi  to  hear  the  three  masses  sung. 
From  the  first  notes  to  the  last  the  whole  perfor- 
mance stirred  the  commissioners  deeply  ;  but  it 
was  the  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus  which  brought 
them  to  their  feet  in  joy  and  wonder.  Cardinal 
Carlo  Borromeo,  the  Pope's  nephew,  reported  to 
Pius  that  the  work  was  an  inspired  production, 
and  beyond  the  unaided  powers  of  a  mere  human 
being,  however  talented  he  might  be  :  and  this 

^  Marcellus  II  (Cervino),  whose  pontificate  lasted  only  twenty-three  days, 
has  been  mentioned  several  times  in  this  chapter.  As  an  example  of  the 
wild  ignorance  with  which  the  music  of  the  sixteenth  century  used  to  be 
discussed,  it  may  te  noted  that  Pellegrini  denied  Palestrina's  authorship  of 
the  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus,  declaring  that  Palestrina  had  merely  worked  up 
a  Mass  written  by  Pope  Marcellus  I.  As  Marcellus  I  died  twelve  centuries 
before  Palestrina  was  born,  and  even  before  the  rudimentary  musical  labours 
of  St.  -Ambrose,  Pellegrini  might  just  as  well  have  said  that  the  present 
cathedral  of  Chartres  was  built  by  the  Druids  who  had  a  shrine  on  the 
same  spot.  Nor  is  Pellegrini  alone  in  blundering  about  Marcellus.  In  a 
sumptuous  volume  of  musical  biographies  published  two  years  ago,  there  is 
a  full-page  plate  with  the  legend,  "  Palestrina  repeating  before  Marcellus  II 
the  Mass  by  which  he  demonstrated  that  Polyphony  could  be  the  vehicle  of 
Religious  Emotion,  a.d,  1564."  The  picture  shows  Palestrina  playing  on 
an  organ,  although  the  organ  would  have  been  fatal  to  his  design.  Mar- 
cellus II  died  in  1555. 


PALESTRINA  loi 

cardinal,  known  to  us  to-day  as  St.  Charles 
Borromeo,  was  not  a  man  to  talk  loosely  or  in- 
sincerely. Pius  IV,  after  hearing  the  mass  in 
public,  was  unmeasured  in  his  praise.  Giovanni 
Parvi,  the  copyist  who  transcribed  the  three 
masses  for  the  Sistine  Chapel,  wrote  out  the 
Marcelliis  in  characters  of  unusual  size  and  beauty 
to  show  his  reverence  for  so  divine  a  composi- 
tion. On  all  hands  it  was  agreed  that  the  model 
for  the  music  of  the  mass  had  indeed  been  found, 
and  many  saw  in  the  composer  the  direct  instru- 
ment of  Providence,  "  the  amanuensis  of  God." 

Thus  Baini. 

In  retort,  Baini's  modern  critics  have  hurled 
more  contempt  at  the  Three  Masses  of  Pales- 
trina  than  was  ever  hurled  at  the  Three  Days  of 
Christopher  Columbus  ;  and  on  some  points 
they  are  certainly  entitled  to  make  merry.  For 
example,  the  words  lUumina  oculos  meos  were 
not  Pierluigi's  prayer  for  light,  but  simply  the 
name  of  a  motet  from  which  he  drew  the  theme 
of  his  mass.  Again,  the  Mass  of  Pope  Mar- 
celliis had  been  written  years  before  the  Council 
of  Trent  discussed  church  music.  Worst  of  all, 
the  records  of  the  proceedings  at  the  house  of 


I02  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Cardinal  Vitellozzi  do  not  state  what  masses 
were  sung,  and  do  not  mention  the  name  of 
Palestrina  at  all. 

The  present  writer  holds  no  brief  for  Baini, 
whose  literary  methods  are  often  irritating  be- 
yond endurance.  Yet  there  is  something  to  be 
said  in  his  defence.  For  fifty  years  the  learned 
differed  from  Baini  over  the  year  of  Pierluigi's 
birth  ;  yet  Baini  was  proved  to  be  nearly  right. 
Because  we  have  no  documents  to  the  effect  that 
Cardinal  Vitelozzi  heard  three  masses  by  Pales- 
trina on  the  memorable  Sunday  of  1565,  it  does 
not  follow  that  no  evidence  on  the  point  existed 
in  Baini's  day,  before  the  slackness  of  United 
Italy  had  allowed  innumerable  treasures  of  the 
Roman  libraries,  including  an  autograph  of 
Christopher  Columbus,  to  be  sold  to  grocers  for 
wrapping  up  butter.  In  the  absence  of  docu- 
ments, the  details  of  Baini's  narrative  strain  the 
faith  of  modern  readers  very  sorely.  And  yet, 
when  one  is  about  to  throw  Baini  aside,  a  still 
greater  puzzle  confronts  one.  How  did  Baini's 
tale  originate  ?  He  was  not  the  kind  of  mian  to 
concoct  a  deliberate  fable  and  coolly  to  foist  it 
upon  the  world.     It  must  always  be  remembered 


PALESTRINA  103 

that  Baini  was  one  of  Palestrina's  successors  as 
director  of  the  chapel  of  the  Vatican  basilica, 
and  that  he  must  have  been  familiar  both  with 
its  traditions  and  with  many  entries  in  its 
archives  which  he  did  not  transcribe  in  his  often 
ridiculous  notes. 

The  writer  has  found  it  worth  his  while  to  try 
and  reconstitute  the  events  of  April,  1565.  At 
that  date  Palestrina  was  not  a  member  of  the 
pontifical  chapel.  He  was  working  at  St.  Mary 
Major  ;  and  there  are  superabundant  proofs  that 
the  pontifical  singers  still  regarded  him  with 
jealousy  and  dislike.  Their  "  punctator,"  or 
secretary,  was  a  Spaniard,  Cristofano  de  Hoyeda, 
whose  recording  of  a  protest  against  Palestrina's 
admission  to  the  choir  has  already  been  men- 
tioned. Having  made  such  an  entry  in  his 
minute-book,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  this 
Spanish  punctator  would  not  go  out  of  his  way 
to  neutralize  it  by  a  further  entry  in  Palestrina's 
favour. 

From  the  fact  that  the  punctator's  entry  for 
Sunday,  28  April,  1565,  merely  states  that  the 
choir  sang  *'  some  masses "  at  the  palace  of 
Cardinal  Vitelli,  Baini's  modern  detractors  seem 


104  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

to  draw  the  conclusion  that  these  masses  were 
not  Palestrina's.  But  if  they  were  not  Pales- 
trina's,  whose  were  they  ?  Had  they  been  the 
works  of  some  actual  members  of  the  pontifical 
chapel,  the  greatly  honoured  composer  would 
have  seen  to  it  that  his  brother  the  punctator 
duly  chronicled  his  name.  In  this  case  the 
argument  from  silence  tells  in  Palestrina's  and 
Baini's  favour. 

But  there  is  a  stronger  argument.  Any  one 
who  knows  the  traditional  thoroughness  with 
which  the  Cardinals  in  Rome  do  their  work 
will  smile  at  the  suggestion  that  their  Eminences 
of  the  commission  simply  sent  for  two  dozen 
cosmopolitan,  self-seeking  musicians  and  meekly 
listened  to  such  masses  as  the  singers  chose 
to  sing.  Musicians  themselves,  the  Cardinals 
would  certainly  decide  what  music  was  to  be 
performed.  And,  as  St.  Carlo  Borromeo  was 
Pierluigi's  friend,  what  composer  would  more 
naturally  recur  to  his  mind  than  Palestrina,  the 
high-principled  musician  who  had  been  honoured 
by  Pope  after  Pope  for  fourteen  years  ?  Those 
who  imagine  that  there  was  a  composer  in  Rome 
more  obviously  worthy  of  the  Cardinals'  choice 


PALESTRINA  105 

than  Palestrina  will  perhaps  divulge  his  name 
and  point  out  the  whereabouts  of  his  com- 
positions. 

The  probability  is  that  Palestrina  was  indeed 
asked  to  provide  the  Cardinals  with  three  masses 
for  the  purposes  of  their  experiment,  and  that 
Baini's  romancing  is  confined  to  his  notion  that 
Palestrina  wrote  three  new  masses  instead  of 
selecting  three  which  he  had  already  written. 
There  was  almost  as  much  need  for  Palestrina  to 
show  an  earnest  and  responsible  spirit  in  select- 
ing old  masses  as  in  writing  new  ones  ;  and,  when 
one  bears  in  mind  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus^  one  is  fairly  entitled  to 
demand  :  If  Baini's  tale  be  all  untrue,  what  was 
it  that  happened  } 

It  was  not  so  much  in  the  form  as  in  the 
matter  and  spirit  that  the  Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus 
differed  from  the  works  of  the  greater  Nether- 
landers.  Technically,  Palestrina  was  not  a  re- 
markable innovator.  His  glorious  achievement 
was  his  taking  up  of  the  existing  polyphonic 
mass-forms,  his  pruning  away  of  their  unseemly 
ornaments,  his  emptying  out  of  their  ostentation 
and  his  filling  them  full  with  Christian  feeling. 


io6  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

As  for  the  point  on  which,  according  to  the 
punctator  Cristofano  de  Hoyeda,  the  Cardinals 
were  most  anxious — that  is  to  say,  the  intelligi- 
biHty  of  the  sacred  words — the  Mass  of  Pope 
Marcellus  has  not  been  overpraised  for  its  sound- 
ness in  this  respect. 

The  term  "  polyphonic "  describes  the  music 
in  which  several  melodies  are  so  woven  together 
as  to  produce  a  rich  effect  of  diversity  in  unity. 
In    "harmonic"    music    the    separate    parts    are 
usually  ugly  or  meaningless  when  they  are  sung 
one  by  one ;  but  in  a  fine  polyphonic  composition 
each  one  of  the  five  or  six  or  more  voices  has 
something  beautiful  to  say  on  its  own  account. 
In  writing  such  music  the  difficulty  is  to  make 
the    particular   beauties    of    the    separate    parts 
coalesce    into    a   general    beauty    of  the    whole 
music   instead    of  clashing    and    jangling.       In 
its    perfection,   polyphony    is    the   ideal    means 
of    expression    on    the    grander     occasions    of 
Christian    worship.      By    reason    of    the     inde- 
pendence of  its   component   melodies   it   is  not 
bound  by  the  strong  and  regular  rhythm  of  our 
"barred"  harmonic  music.     Indeed,  by  causing 
the  accents  of  the  parts  to  fall  at  different  points 


PALESTRINA  107 

it  so  distributes  them  as  to  suppress  the  effect  of 
rhythm  altogether,  thus  excluding  the  restlessness 
of  space  and  time  and  filling  the  soul  with  the 
sense  of  eternity.  Yet  the  eternity  to  which  it 
testifies  is  not  a  void  or  a  negation  ;  it  is  a  full 
sea  rich  with  lights  and  murmurs.  At  other 
times  polyphonic  music  suggests  by  its  diversity 
in  unity  the  ideal  state  of  the  Church  in  which 
multitudes  of  bright  and  strong  personalities  are 
suppressing  their  selfishness  and  dwelling  together 
in  love  with  one  heart  and  with  one  mind. 

The  best  of  Palestrina's  forerunners  were 
almost  (but  not  quite)  his  equals  in  the  mere 
skill  with  which  they  plaited  together  the  strands 
of  the  polyphony.  But  where  they  plaited  hemp 
and  straw,  Palestrina  intercoiled  silk  and  fine 
linen  and  threads  of  silver  and  gold.  In  other 
words,  his  parts  were  not  dry  sequences  of  sounds, 
but  melodies  of  gracious  and  spiritual  beauty. 
To  a  trained  musician  his  finest  works  are 
marvels.  The  separate  melodies  move  so  largely 
that  one  can  hardly  believe  they  are  subordinate 
to  a  still  larger  general  pattern,  and  yet  the 
pattern  of  the  whole  is  bold  and  clear.  The 
parts  are  as  distinctive  as  the  colours  of  the  rain- 


io8  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

bow  ;  yet  the  whole  falls  as  freely  and  naturally 
as  a  sunbeam.  Palestrina's  works  abound  in 
passages  which,  by  their  sheer  musicianship, 
place  him  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the  greatest 
composers  of  whom  we  have  knowledge.  The 
world  has  known  artists  as  great,  but  none  greater. 
He  was  the  equal  of  Bach,  Handel,  Mozart, 
Beethoven,  Wagner  ;  of  Bramante,  Raphael, 
Michael  Angelo. 

What  would  have  happened  if  Palestrina's 
masses  had  failed  to  convince  the  Cardinals 
nobody  knows.  But  the  Church  had  become 
so  dissatisfied  with  the  bulk  of  polyphonic 
masses  that  she  would  certainly  have  taken 
repressive  measures  of  some  kind.  Pius  and 
his  councillors  were  not  mere  talkers,  and  it  is 
probable  that  their  legislation  would  have  effec- 
tively muzzled  polyphonic  music  at  the  very 
moment  when  it  was  approaching  its  artistic 
climax.  Throughout  three  hundred  blundering 
years  composers  had  been  labouring  to  make 
such  music  as  Palestrina's  possible.  The"Nuove 
Musiche  "  was  already  in  the  air,  and  if  the  Pope 
and  cardinals  had  silenced  such  men  as  Palestrina 
and  Vittoria,  instead  of  inflaming  them  to  utter 


PALESTRINA  109 

the  best  that  was  within  them,  polyphonic  music 
would  survive  to-day  only  as  a  curiosity  for 
musical  antiquaries.  Without  Palestrina's  success 
we  should  look  back  upon  it  as  a  truncated 
pyramid.  But  Palestrina  did  not  fail,  and  poly- 
phonic music  rises  up  through  the  mists  of  the 
centuries  as  a  goodly  tower  full-builded.  Like 
the  western  towers  of  the  greatest  of  French 
cathedrals,  its  basement  is  rude,  and  its  stories  as 
high  as  the  nave  roof  are  bald  and  stiff,  and 
some  of  its  ornaments  are  misplaced  and  gro- 
tesque. But  its  final  rush  into  the  blue  is 
altogether  glorious,  and  its  golden  cross  is  as 
radiant  as  a  lark  singing  ever  so  high  in  heaven. 

It  must  be  understood  that  the  concerted 
music  which  has  just  been  discussed  was  only 
supplementary  to  the  plain-chant.  At  every  high 
celebration  of  Mass  the  two  musics  were  heard 
alternately — the  plain-chant  in  the  "  Proper  "  of 
the  Mass  and  the  polyphonic  music  in  the 
"  Ordinary."  ^     Outside    the    Mass   there    were 

1  See  the  foot-note  on  page  89.  The  texts  "proper  "to  each  feast  are 
generally  taken  from  the  Holy  Scriptures.  For  example,  the  Introit  sung 
at  the  beginning  of  the  third  Mass  on  Christmas  Day  is  Puer  natus  est  nobis, 
"Unto  us  a  Son  is  born," 


no  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

also  the  other  divine  offices  with  their  "  Proper." 
The  number  of  "  Proper  "  texts  sung  during  the 
liturgical  year  ran  into  many  hundreds,  and  the 
plain-chant  musical  settings  were  equally  abun- 
dant. These  plain -chant  settings  had  been 
accumulating  throughout  a  period  of  a  thousand 
years  before  the  meeting  of  the  Sacred  Council 
of  Trent,  and  it  would  have  been  hard  to  find 
two  ecclesiastical  provinces  or  even  two  dioceses 
in  which  the  MS.  versions  entirely  agreed. 
Accordingly,  in  1576,  Gregory  XIII  set  about  a 
work  which  well  became  a  pope  who  had  chosen 
a  name  recalling  the  traditional  foster-father  of 
plain-chant,  St.  Gregory  the  First  and  the  Great. 
He  charged  Palestrina  and  a  brother  composer, 
Antonio  Zoilo,  with  the  revision  of  the  Graduale 
and  the  Antiphonarium. 

Fortunately,  however,  Palestrina  did  not  lay 
his  composer's  quill  aside.  The  following 
eighteen  years  were  the  years  which  gave  birth 
to  some  of  the  finest  of  his  ninety-three  masses 
— for  instance,  to  the  masses  Mterna  Christi 
Munera,  Dum  Complerentur,  Iste  Confessor^  and 
Assumpta  est  Maria.  They  were  also  the  years 
during  which  he  wrote  his  most  wonderful  Soyig 


PALESTRINA  m 

of  Solomon  motets,  his  Stahat  Mater  (edited  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  later  by  Richard  Wagner), 
and  his  Lamentations^  which  were  composed  at  the 
request  of  Sixtus  V.  Amidst  so  much  activity 
the  revision  of  the  plain  -  song  was  not  com- 
pleted. Igino,  his  one  surviving  son  and  a 
low-principled  wastrel,  basely  hired  a  hack  after 
his  father's  death  to  botch  up  a  pretended  com- 
pletion of  the  work  for  which  Igino  exacted  2500 
scudi  ;  but  the  Vatican  Chapter  discovered  the 
fraud.  How  far  Palestrina's  editorial  work  led 
to  practical  results  is  uncertainly  known.  With- 
out the  aid  of  a  well-manned  commission,  whose 
duty  it  should  have  been  to  overhaul  the  choir- 
books  of  all  Christendom,  it  was  impossible  for 
much  to  be  done  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
hard  to  believe  that  the  judgments  and,  better 
still,  the  intuitions  of  such  a  man  should  have 
borne  upon  the  subject  for  years  in  vain.  The 
whole  affair  of  Palestrina's  revision  of  the 
Graduale  is  beset,  however,  by  perplexities 
almost  as  great  as  those  which  surround  the 
story  of  his  three  masses.  If  we  are  to  believe 
one  of  his  contemporaries,  the  Spanish  com- 
poser Fernand  de  Las  Infantas,  who  memorialized 


112  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  Pope  on  the  subject  through  Philip  II, 
Palestrina  laid  irreverent  hands  upon  the  beauti- 
ful and  ancient  chant.  Indeed,  until  a  few  years 
ago  it  was  customary  to  saddle  Palestrina  with 
the  doubtful  honours  of  the  unhappy  Medicean 
edition  of  the  Graduale  (1614)  which  the  Church 
only  disowned  under  Leo  XIII. 

Enjoying  emoluments  equal  to  ;^500  a  year 
at  the  present  value  of  money,  and  united  in 
second  marriage  with  a  rich  widow,  Victoria 
Dormuli,  Palestrina  lived  the  last  fourteen  years 
of  his  life  in  dignified  ease.  With  the  help  of 
the  Duke  of  Mantua  and  other  patrons,  he  was 
able  to  publish  work  after  work,  and  thus  to 
challenge  before  the  world  the  sumptuously 
printed  masterpieces  of  Orlandus  Lassus. 

Palestrina's  end  came  on  2  February,  1594. 
He  died  as  he  had  lived,  a  fervent  Christian  and 
a  devout  churchman  :  and  all  Rome  knew  that 
the  poor  plate  of  lead  upon  his  coffin  spoke  the 
truth  with  its  two  proud  words  :  MUSIC AE 
PRINCEPS—"-  Prince  of  Music." 


MONTEVERDE 

TN  the  year  darkened  by  Palestrina's  death,  a 
company  of  dilettanti  assembled  in  the  house 
of  one  Corsi,  at  Florence,  in  order  to  assist  at  the 
first  performance  of  a  work  called  Daphne.  Both 
its  libretto,  by  Rinuccini,  and  its  music,  by 
Giacopo  Peri,  have  disappeared  ;  but  Daphne 
remains  famous  as  the  first  opera  ever  written. 

It  was  fitting  that  the  city  of  Florence  should 
be  the  birthplace  of  the  new  movement  in  art 
which  brought  Daphne  into  existence.  As  a 
centre  of  ecclesiastical  music  Florence  had  never 
been  remarkable,  and  there  were  no  deeply  rooted 
and  grandly  grown  local  traditions  encumbering 
the  ground.  Again,  Florence  was  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Renaissance.  In  no  other  city 
had  the  mania  for  the  art  and  literature  of  ancient 
Greece  so  completely  possessed  men's  minds. 
The  "  New  Music,"  of  which  Daphne  was  the 
first  clean-cut  example,  was  not  a  deliberate  in- 
H  113 


114  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

novation.  It  was  accidentally  discovered  in  the 
course  of  a  fruitless  search  for  the  Old  Music 
of  the  classical  Greek  theatre. 

Giovanni  Bardi,  Count  of  Vernio,  was  the 
moving  spirit  of  the  so-called  Academy  of  eager 
Florentines  to  which  Rinuccini  and  Peri  be- 
longed. Bardi,  who  was  himself  a  poet  and 
something  of  a  composer,  had  been  appointed  to 
a  post  which  gave  him  the  direction  of  the  ducal 
festivities  and  entertainments,  and  he  did  not 
neglect  his  opportunities  of  working  for  the  all- 
round  triumph  of  the  classical  revival.  Mediceval- 
ism  had  already  been  cast  out  of  literature, 
architecture,  and  painting  ;  and  Bardi  and  his 
friends  yearned  to  cast  it  out  of  music  also. 
Whatever  may  be  said  to  the  contrary,  the  poly- 
phonic masterpieces  which  Bardi  found  in  posses- 
sion of  the  field  belong  in  spirit  to  the  Middle 
Ages  and  only  in  date  to  the  Renaissance.^  If 
the  polyphonic  method  had  been  confined  to 
church  music,  probably  Bardi  would  have  made 
no  complaint.     But  the  method  dominated  nearly 


^  This  belated  arrival  of  the  full-developed  mediaeval  music,  many 
generations  after  the  consummation  of  mediaeval  architecture,  was  partly 
explained  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  present  volume. 


MONTEVERDE  115 

all  music,  excepting  certain  instrumental  composi- 
tions, and  the  songs  and  dances  of  the  common 
people. 

The  grievance  came  to  a  head  one  day  in  Venice, 
whither  the  patricians  of  Florence  had  repaired 
for  the  marriage  of  their  Duke,  Francesco  I,  with 
the  lovely  Venetian,  Bianca  Capello,  in  1579. 
Throughout  the  glittering  festivities  everything 
went  bravely  except  the  music.  A  happily- 
chosen  poet  had  penned  some  deft  verses  in 
praise  of  the  beauty  of  the  bride  ;  but  they  were 
smothered  to  death  under  the  portentous  music 
of  Andrea  Gabrieli  and  Claudio  Merullo.  Yet 
Gabrieli  was  no  dry  pedant,  but  a  genuine  musi- 
cian. For  secular  purposes  the  methods,  not  the 
men,  were  to  blame.  Count  Bardi,  however,  did 
not  hesitate  to  denounce  the  method  and  the 
practitioners  too.  He  had  listened  to  the  per- 
formance about  as  patiently  as  the  sinful  Tann- 
hauser  listened  to  the  excellent  Wolfram's  blame- 
less discourse  on  love.  But,  like  Tannhauser, 
Bardi  and  his  friends  could  not  stop  short  at 
abusing  others'  performances.  They  seized  their 
harps,  burning  to  show  how  the  thing  ought  to 
be  done. 


ii6  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Filled  as  they  were  with  an  unreasoning  passion 
for  antiquity,  these  academicians  of  Florence 
jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  problem  would 
be  solved  by  a  revival  of  the  Greek  tragic  drama, 
ancient  music  and  all.  But  where  was  the 
ancient  music  to  be  found  ?  A  little  inquiry 
showed  that  it  was  either  lost  or  embedded  in 
the  Church's  heritage  of  plain -chant.  Dis- 
appointed, but  not  daunted,  they  turned  to 
Florentine  musicians  to  make  the  deficiency  good. 
Music  was  supplied  and  a  Greek  play  was  per- 
formed ;  but  even  the  youngest  and  most  fervid 
academicians  could  not  blind  themselves  to  its 
utter  failure. 

In  spite  of  this  fiasco,  Bardi  persisted  in  his 
quest  for  a  new  musical  language  which  should 
express  the  poignant  emotions  of  tragic  drama  as 
adequately  as  the  idiom  of  Palestrina  expressed 
the  high  and  holy  wonder  of  Christian  worship. 
The  Academy  soon  perceived  that,  as  drama  is 
concerned  with  the  clash  and  interplay  of  human 
individuals,  the  first  step  was  to  write  music  for 
a  single  singer  instead  of  for  a  number  of  voices 
combining  to  execute  five  or  six  "  parts."  To 
modern  readers  such  a  reform  seems  too  obvious 


MONTEVERDE  117 

for  discussion  ;  but,  like  every  other  notable 
advance  in  the  history  of  music,  this  stride  for- 
ward was  not  taken  without  delays  and  doubts 
and  fears.  It  was  Vincenzo  Galilei,  the  father  of 
the  astronomer,  and  himself  a  lutenist  and  a  com- 
poser, as  well  as  a  man  of  letters  and  a  mathema- 
tician, who  led  the  way.  On  a  date  which  cannot 
be  ascertained,  somewhere  in  the  fifteen-eighties, 
Galilei  publicly  sang  a  monody  of  his  own  com- 
position, "  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  viol." 
The  work  was  a  setting  of  the  scene  of  Ugolino 
in  the  Inferno  of  Dante.  It  is  recorded  that  some 
of  the  hearers  laughed.  But  others  applauded  ; 
and  Galilei  soon  came  forward  again  with  a 
monodic  setting  of  the  lamentations  of  Jeremiah. 
Other  experiments  followed.  And,  in  1594, 
came  Daphne^  in  which  not  one  but  several  per- 
formers assumed  dramatic  roles  and  sang  their 
speeches  throughout  to  an  instrumental  accom- 
paniment. 

From  all  the  indications,  Daphne  was  a  weak 
and  fumbling  experiment  falteringly  made  in  a 
private  house.  Yet  Daphne  was  big  with  the 
future  of  modern  music.  Though  powerless  to 
submerge  the  noble  monuments  which  Palestrina 


ii8  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

and  his  school  had  built  so  high  and  strong,  the 
"  New  Music  "  was  destined  to  turn  the  whole 
flood  of  musical  activity  into  an  unsuspected 
channel.  Daphne  was  the  death-warrant  of  poly- 
phony as  a  method  for  future  composers.  And 
Daphne  was  born  in  the  year  when  Palestrina 
died. 

The  polyphonists  did  not  consent  to  be  deposed 
without  a  sharp  and  spirited  struggle.  They 
boldly  took  the  offensive  and  came  out  of  church 
into  the  full  front  of  the  monodists'  position. 
Their  chief  fighting-man,  Orazzi  Vecchi,  set 
himself  to  prove  that  the  unaccompanied  poly- 
phonic method  could  be  used  not  only  for 
motets  and  madrigals,  but  even  for  a  comic 
opera.  Accordingly  he  published  Anfiparnasso^  a 
work  so  odd  that  some  good  critics  refuse  to 
take  it  seriously  and  regard  it  as  a  screaming 
parody  upon  the  New  Music.  In  Anfiparnasso 
five  singers  keep  on  singing  in  the  madrigal 
style.  Whenever  the  dramatic  action  requires 
that  only  one  character  shall  be  on  the  stage 
soliloquizing,  the  claims  of  polyphony  are  met 
by  making  one  singer  sing  in  view  of  the 
audience  while  the  other  four  sing  out  of  sight. 


ORI'HEL'S    AM)    THE    BeASTS. 
F7-oin  an  Old  riiiit. 


MONTEVERDE  119 

While  the  two  lovers  are  singing  "on,"  the  three 
other  choristers  are  singing  "  off."  In  other 
words,  a  choral  flow  takes  the  place  of  an  instru- 
mental accompaniment — an  essentially  undrama- 
tic  arrangement. 

Six  years  after  the  production  of  DaphnCy 
Giacopo  Peri's  hour  struck.  Henri  IV  of 
France  was  on  his  way  to  Florence  for  his 
nuptials  with  Marie  de  Medicis.  The  academi- 
cians rushed  forward  to  seize  the  opportunity  of 
gilding  the  New  Music  with  the  splendour  of 
royal  patronage.  Rinuccini  wrote  a  dramatic 
poem  Euridice^  and  Peri  once  more  supplied 
dramatic  music.  This  time,  however,  their 
efforts  were  not  doomed  to  the  seclusion  of  a 
private  house.  Euridice  was  performed  on  so 
grand  a  scale  that,  within  a  month,  all  the 
artists  and  courtiers  of  Europe  were  discussing 
it.  Peri  himself  sang  the  music  allotted  to 
Orpheus  ;  Francesca,  the  daughter  of  Peri's 
brother- musician     Caccini,    was    Euridice,    and 

^  The  operatic  settings  of  the  story  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice  are 
innumerable.  Among  the  painters  and  engravers,  as  well  as  among  the 
musicians  of  the  classical  revival,  this  story  was  an  unfailing  favourite. 
Two  old  Orpheus  prints  of  musical  interest  are  reproduced  facing  pages  ii8 
and  IZ2. 


120  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

some  of  the  proudest  noblemen  and  noblewomen 
of  Tuscany  completed  the  cast.  The  little 
opera  was  a  success  :  and  thus  gushed  fairly 
into  the  sunlight  the  spring  of  musical  activity 
which  was  to  broaden  at  last  into  the  brim- 
ming and  sounding  flood  of  Die  Meistersinger 
von  Nurnherg. 

There  is  no  instrumental  overture  to  Euridice. 
The  piece  begins  with  a  prologue  declaimed  to  a 
simple  melody  by  a  singer  representing  the 
Tragic  Muse,  with  very  short  instrumental 
ritornelli  dividing  the  seven  verses.  The  orches- 
tra consisted  of  a  chitarrone  (a  great  lute),  a  lira 
grande,  a  liuto  grosso,  and  a  gravicembalo.  The 
gravicembalo  was  a  keyed  instrument  (a  remote 
ancestor  of  the  pianoforte),  and  on  this  occasion 
it  was  played  by  Corsi.  The  Tragic  Muse 
having  retired,  some  shepherds  appear  and  carry 
on  a  conversation  by  means  of  recitatives  and 
extremely  brief  and  bald  choruses.  Euridice 
and  Orpheus  come  on  but  soon  go  off  again, 
leaving  the  shepherd  Thyrsis  to  make  a  few 
remarks  and  to  execute  a  long  composition  upon 
a  triple  flute.  At  length  Daphne  breaks  in  with 
the  news   that   a  venomous   serpent   has   bitten 


MONTE  VERDE  121 

Euridice  and  that  she  is  dead.  The  shepherds 
lament,  and  Act  I  Is  at  an  end. 

Act  II  shows  Orpheus  in  the  infernal  regions, 
pleading  with  Venus,  with  Pluto,  with  Proserpine, 
with  Charon,  and  with  Rhadamanthus  that  Euri- 
dice may  be  given  back  to  his  arms.  Almost  all 
this  scene  is  recitative.  In  the  last  scene  of  all, 
Orpheus  returns  to  Thyrsis  and  the  other  shep- 
herds; and  some  short  choral  passages  and  dances 
bring  the  opera  to  a  close.  After  their  onslaughts 
on  Gabrieli  and  Merullo  for  the  unjoyfulness  of 
their  wedding  music  at  Venice,  no  doubt  the 
academicians  felt  bound  to  give  Euridice  a  happy 
ending. 

Apart  from  its  historical  interest,  Euridice  is 
musically  worthless.  In  his  preface  to  the  score, 
printed  at  Venice,  Peri  laid  down  some  sound 
principles  of  operatic  composition.  He  declared 
that  the  unemotional  parts  of  the  dialogue  ought 
to  be  recited  to  a  sustained  accompaniment  in  a 
manner  which  should  be  half  song,  half  speech. 
He  added  that  the  more  impassioned  utterances 
required  quicker  and  more  strongly  marked  melo- 
dies with  more  abundant  changes  in  the  supporting 
harmony.     Unfortunately,    however,  when    one 


122  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

turns  to  the  work  itself  one  finds  that  Eu7'idice  is 

almost   barren  of  melodic   beauty  and   dramatic 

force.    In  short,  Peri  opened  the  door  and  showed 

others  the  way  ;  but  he  himself  stumbled  on  the 

threshold. 

Imitations  of  Euridice^  both  bad  and  indiffer- 
ent, sprang  up  like  mushrooms.  Caccini,  Peri's 
friend,  printed  a  musical  version  of  the  same 
Euridice  poem  which  was  never  performed  in 
public.  All  over  northern  Italy  the  poets  and 
composers  were  busy.  In  Rome  opera  made  its 
way  more  slowly  :  for,  according  to  Pietro  della 
Valle  (who  recorded  the  event  in  1640),  "lyric 
drama  made  its  first  appearance  in  Rome  during 
the  Carnival  of  i6c6  upon  a  cart."  The  cart 
was  roomy  enough  to  hold  a  small  stage  and  an 
orchestra.  With  Pietro  della  Valle  as  stage- 
manager,  the  players  performed  an  opera  by 
Paolo  Quagliati,  to  the  high  delight  of  the 
Roman  people,  who  followed  the  cart  about 
the  streets  from  four  in  the  afternoon  till  mid- 
night. 

Meanwhile,  the  man  who  was  to  make  the 
fortune  of  the  New  Music  was  living  obscurely  at 
Mantua  as  a  viol  player  in  the  ducal  band.     His 


r,    O 


MONTEVERDE  123 

name  was  Claudio  Monteverde.  Born  at  Cre- 
mona in  1568,  he  had  migrated  to  Mantua  at  an 
early  age.  His  tutor  in  counterpoint  was  Ingeg- 
neri,  chapel-master  to  the  Duke  of  Mantua.^ 
For  the  earnest  Ingegneri's  sake,  it  is  warmly  to 
be  hoped  that  he  had  no  other  pupil  like  young 
Claudio.  The  lad  could  not  be  induced  to  receive 
the  traditions  of  counterpoint  with  becoming 
reverence.  Instead  of  accepting  the  contrapun- 
tal rules  as  if  they  were  laws  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians,  he  embraced  the  now  familiar  doctrine 
that  what  sounds  right  cannot  be  wrong.  If 
counterpoint  did  not  agree  with  Claudio  Monte- 
verde, so  much  the  worse  for  counterpoint.  Nor 
was  this  an  empty  outburst  of  youthful  icono- 
clasm.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  published,  at 
Venice,  a  book  of  Canzonette  a  tre  vocij  in  which 
orthodox  counterpoint  was  repeatedly  defied. 
His  elders  bewailed  this  youthful  indiscretion, 
and  patiently  awaited  the  prodigal's  return.  But 
he  remained  impenitent.      Fifteen  years  after  the 

^  For  generations  Ingegneri  was  little  more  than  a  name.  But  it  has 
been  discovered  recently  that  he  was  the  author  of  certain  fine  compositions 
which  had  been  published  as  "doubtful"  in  an  appendix  to  the  works  of 
Palestrina.  Some  of  these  compositions  were  added,  under  Ingegneri's 
name,  to  the  repertory  of  Westminster  Cathedral  in  1907. 


124  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Canzonette^  at  the  responsible  age  of  thirty-one, 
he  launched  from  the  press  his  fifth  book  of 
madrigals,  in  which  he  broke  definitely  away  from 
the  past.  It  is  important  to  note  that  this  was  in 
1599,  a  year  before  the  production  of  Peri's 
Euridice.  Peri  had  the  luck  to  write  the  first 
opera  ;  but  Monteverde  was  the  true  pioneer  of 
the  New  Music.^ 

The  contrapuntists  took  up  Monteverde's  chal- 
lenge. There  has  always  been  plenty  of  printers' 
ink  in  Venice,  and  both  sides  discharged  pamph- 
lets at  the  heads  of  their  opponents.  Monteverde 
replied  with  spirit  to  his  foes  ;  and  so  far  was  the 
Duke  of  Mantua  from  feeling  ashamed  of  his 
turbulent  viol-player,  that  in  1603  he  appointed 
him  chapel-master  in  succession  to  Ingegneri. 
Four  years  later  the  betrothal  of  the  Duke's  son 
to  the  Infanta  of  Savoy  gave  Monteverde  his 
chance  of  rivalling  the  opera  which  Peri  had 
composed  for  the  royal  wedding  at  Florence. 
Rinuccini,  the  poet  who  had  written  the  libretti 
of  Peri's  Dafne  and  Euridice ^  was  called  upon  to 

^  In  the  history  of  harmony  Monteverde  holds  a  striking  place.  He 
was  the  first  composer  who  used,  habitually  and  of  set  purpose,  unprepared 
discords.  The  consequences  of  this  departure  were  of  immense  importance: 
but  the  matter  is  too  technical  for  these  pages. 


MONTEVERDE  125 

provide  Monteverde  with  a  poetic  drama.  He 
responded  with  Arianna.  Of  Monteverde's  music 
only  one  page  has  survived.  This  contains  the 
forsaken  Ariadne's  lament  which  is  said  to  have 
moved  all  who  heard  it  to  tears.  The  fragment 
contains  only  nineteen  bars,  but  it  is  surcharged 
with  intense  feeling  and  abounds  in  musical 
novelties. 

As  if  to  force  comparisons  with  the  timid  ex- 
periments of  Peri,  Monteverde  quickly  followed 
up  Arianna  with  a  Euridice  opera  called  Orfeo. 
As  Orfeo  was  printed  at  Venice  in  1609,  it  can  be 
studied  as  a  whole  ;  and  no  musician  is  able  to 
peruse  its  pages  without  amazement.  From  the 
stormy  orchestral  introduction  to  the  closing  duet 
for  Apollo  and  Orpheus  as  they  ascend  to  heaven, 
Orfeo  is  a  book  of  wonders.  It  is  true  that  most 
of  the  wonders  are  of  the  technical  order,  and 
that  they  are  only  apparent  to  readers  who  can 
contrast  Monteverde's  methods  with  those  of  his 
immediate  forerunners  ;  but  there  are  also  many 
fine  passages  by  which  even  general  hearers  would 
be  pleased  and  stirred. 

Monteverde  has  been  justly  lauded  for  the  skill 
and    sound    feeling   with    which    he    composed 


126  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

music  for  the  solo  voice.  But  he  deserves  even 
warmer  praise  for  his  invention  of  the  dramatic 
orchestra.  Before  Monteverde's  Arianna^  which 
was  supported  by  thirty-six  instrumentalists, 
orchestras  were  often  equally  large  ;  but  the 
stringed  instruments  were  mainly  such  as  were 
plucked  with  the  fingers  or  with  quills.  With 
such  instruments  it  was  impossible  to  sustain 
sounds  as  they  are  sustained  upon  stringed  in- 
struments played  with  the  bow.  From  an  or- 
chestra of  quill-plucked  strings  one  can  only 
obtain  a  sum-total  of  sounds  like  a  multitudinous 
pattering  of  raindrops  or  hailstones  ;  while 
from  the  bow-played  strings  one  can  draw  great 
sweeps  of  tone,  rising  and  falling  like  a  wind 
in  pines,  or  like  the  chaunt  of  a  waterfall,  or 
like  wailing  or  exulting  human  voices.  Every 
modern  opera-goer  comes  home  with  his  ears 
full  of  the  long-drawn  passionate  song  of  the 
violins,  "  yearning  like  a  God  in  pain."  And 
it  was  Monteverde  who  made  the  bow-played 
strings  supreme  in  the  dramatic  orchestra.  Again, 
it  was  Monteverde  who  took  the  first  bold  steps 
towards  a  discriminating  use  of  the  separate 
groups  of  instruments  instead  of  thrumming  the 


MONTEVERDE  127 

whole  orchestra  like  a  big  guitar  from  beginning 
to  end  of  the  performance  without  regard  to 
dramatic  fitness. 

Orfeo  was  produced  at  the  wedding  of  Francis 
Gonzaga  with  the  Infanta  of  Savoy,  along  with 
Monteverde's  Ballo  delle  Ingrate.  It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  what  the  Infanta's  maids-of- 
honour  thought  of  //  Ballo  delle  Ingrate^  which  was 
a  musical  "  morality "  in  dispraise  of  flirts  and 
coquettes.  The  punishments  in  store  for  heart- 
less beauties  were  luridly  portrayed  upon  the 
stage  ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  action  Venus,  as 
Goddess  of  Love,  and  Pluto,  as  Lord  of  Hades, 
came  forward  and  sang  a  solemn  warning  to 
the  ladies  present,  declaring  that  although  their 
loveliness  must  fade,  the  pains  in  punishment  of 
their  cruelty  to  faithful  lovers  would  endure. 
Classical  conceits  and  affectations  of  this  order 
were  so  abundant  in  the  libretti  with  which 
Monteverde  had  to  deal,  that  the  directness 
and  sincerity  of  his  music  are  doubly  remark- 
able. 

The  scenic  accessories  of  these  performances 
were  so  expensive  that  opera  was  out  of  the 
question  save  at  princely  nuptials  or  on  other 


128  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

occasions  of  lavish  rejoicing.  This  is  the  reason 
why  sixteen  years  passed  before  Monteverde  set 
to  work  upon  his  fourth  opera.  But  the  three 
operas  already  made  public  had  done  so  much  for 
his  fame  that,  in  1613,  Venice  coaxed  him  away 
from  Mantua  by  offering  him  the  post  of  chapel- 
master  of  St.  Mark's  at  a  higher  salary  than  had 
ever  been  paid  before.  At  Venice  the  New 
Musician  continued  to  scandalize  the  Old  Musi- 
cians by  publishing  madrigals  which  must  have 
made  Ingegneri  turn  in  his  grave.  Worse  still, 
he  inflicted  a  real  disaster  upon  music  by  forcing 
his  dramatic  method  into  the  sacred  offices  of  the 
Church.  A  Requiem,  which  he  composed  in 
1 62 1,  was  the  forerunner  of  the  theatrical 
masses — "  the  shilling  opera,"  as  Pugin  used  to 
call  them — which  have  so  lately  been  forbidden 
after  doing  violence  to  religion  for  twelve  gene- 
rations. 

Three  years  after  the  Requiem  came  another 
and  bigger  opera,  //  Combattimento  di  Tancredi  e 
Clorinda.  Modern  playgoers  who  have  heard 
neither  of  II  Combattimento  nor  of  Claud io 
Monteverde  will  be  surprised  to  hear  that  in  this 
opera  was  originated  a  practice  which  has  become         j 


MONTEVERDE  129 

one  of  the  stock  tricks  of  the  stage.  When  the 
manly  Frank  (wrongly  accused  by  the  wicked 
Jasper  of  the  murder)  takes  his  passionate  fare- 
well in  the  moonlight  of  the  golden-haired,  white- 
robed,  clinging  Muriel  and  confides  to  her  the 
papers,  a  tremolando  on  the  strings  of  the  theatre 
band  sharpens  the  poignancy  of  the  moment.  It 
is  a  common  thing  to  hear  people  say  that  this 
device  was  borrowed  from  Wagner  ;  but,  like  the 
practice  of  pizzicato  (or  plucking  with  the  fingers 
at  the  strings  of  an  instrument  made  for  the  bow), 
it  descends  straight  from  Monteverde.^  //  Com- 
hatdmento  was  followed  by  //  Rosajo  Fiorito, 
Proserpina  Rapita^  a  mass,  and  some  mis- 
cellaneous music. 

In  1633  Monteverde  is  said  to  have  been 
ordained  priest.  But  this  event  does  not  seem 
to  have  put  a  stop  to  his  career  as  a  composer  for 

^  It  may  be  objected  that  in  modern  melodrama  the  tremolando  is  played 
to  the  speaking  voice  of  an  actor,  whereas  in  Monteverde's  case  it  supported 
the  voice  of  a  singer.  The  truth  is  that  the  musical  phrase  for  which 
Monteverde  first  used  this  accompaniment  is  less  like  song  than  excited 
speech. 

Perhaps  the  reader  ought  to  be  reminded  that  the  word  "melodrama  " 
has  lost  its  proper  meaning.  A  melodrama  is  not  necessarily  a  gaudy  and 
loud  affair  of  an  adventuress,  a  lost  child,  a  hidden  will,  a  murder  and  a 
comic  Irishman.  True  melodrama  is  a  form  of  music-drama  ;  and  some- 
thing like  it  was  in  the  minds  of  Bardi  and  his^Academy  in  Florence. 
I 


I30  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  theatre.  In  1639,  despite  his  sacerdotal 
dignity  and  his  seventy-one  years,  he  came  for- 
ward with  an  opera  on  the  profane  theme  of 
Adonis,  which  delighted  the  Venetians  so  hugely 
that  it  ran  until  the  Carnival  of  1640  brought 
theatrical  entertainments  to  an  end. 

The  Adonis  of  Monteverde  stands  for  much 
more  than  itself.  Hitherto  operas  had  been 
produced  only  under  the  patronage  of  princes  or 
doges;  but,  in  1639,  two  professional  musicians 
made  the  bold  experiment  of  opening  the  first 
public  opera-house  in  Europe.  Adonis  was 
accordingly  the  first  music-drama  written  for  the 
people  at  large.  Very  quickly  a  second  Venetian 
opera-house  opened  its  doors  with  a  revival  of 
Arianna  and  two  new  operas  dealing  with  The 
Marriage  of  Mneas  and  Lavinia  and  The  Return  of 
Ulysses.  All  these  are  pagan  subjects;  but  the 
Puritan  movement  which,  at  this  time,  was 
reaching  its  climax  in  England,  had  no  counter- 
part in  Venice.  Besides,  the  priestly  musician's 
face  was  saved  by  the  fact  that  both  the  opera- 
houses  of  Venice  bore  the  names  of  saints,  the 
first  being  called  San  Cassiano  and  the  second 
San  Marco. 


MONTEVERDE  131 

It  has  been  too  readily  assumed  that  the  rise 
of  the  impresario  and  the  decay  of  the  patron 
were  to  the  advantage  of  operatic  art.  The 
change  was  inevitable  ;  but  it  was  not  wholly 
salutary.  On  the  face  of  it,  the  broadening  of 
an  art's  basis  by  the  substitution  of  democratic 
support  for  aristocratic  patronage  commends 
itself  to  modern  ideas  as  all  for  the  best.  But 
the  fact  remains  that  opera  has  only  prospered 
greatly  under  high  and  enlightened  patrons, 
and  that  it  has  languished  wherever  it  has 
been  conducted  on  purely  commercial  lines. 
Nowhere  are  operatic  conductors  and  singers 
more  persistently  petted  and  overpaid  than  in 
England  and  the  United  States  of  America  ; 
and  yet  England  and  the  United  States  of 
America  are  the  only  two  wealthy  and  pro- 
gressive countries  where  opera  has  to  be  im- 
ported as  a  costly  exotic  because  a  native  pro- 
duct hardly  exists.  To  write  operas  for  the 
pleasure  of  a  prince  or  of  some  other  indi- 
vidual employer  is  thought  nowadays  to  smack 
of  degrading  servility  ;  but  history  would  show 
that  the  public  has  been  quite  as  humiliating 
a  taskmaster  as  the  princely  patron,  while  it  has 


132  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

been  at  the  same  time  infinitely  more  inaccessible, 
fickle  and  inartistic. 

The  philanthropy  of  our  English-speaking 
millionaires  lacks  variety.  One  or  two  of  their 
enormous  gifts  for  vague  ends  of  "  education  " 
might  very  well  be  diverted  to  the  refreshing  and 
ennobling  of  men  by  means  of  grand  opera,  both 
grave  and  gay.  Rich  individuals,  as  well  as 
cities  and  States,  already  give  commissions  to 
architects  and  painters ;  but  how  often  does  one 
hear  of  a  rich  man  standing  beside  a  composer  of 
music-dramas  with  five  thousand  pounds  ?  And 
yet,  if  his  patronage  were  sufficiently  intelligent, 
he  would  find  that  his  money,  like  the  money 
laid  out  by  sagacious  backers  of  young  painters, 
was  not  lost,  but  so  invested  as  to  bring  in 
dividends  more  tangible  than  gratitude  and 
fame. 

Following  the  example  of  Venice,  the  greater 
cities  made  haste  to  build  public  opera-houses 
throughout  Italy.  Cavalli,  the  successor  of 
Monteverde,  and  other  genuine  musicians  sup- 
plied innumerable  new  pieces  ;  but  the  rank  and 
file  of  opera-goers  were  not  slow  in  requiring  the 
composers  to  unbend  and  to  spice  the  entertain- 


MONTEVERDE  133 

ment  with  buffooneries.  For  example,  in  Cavalli's 
Jason  there  is  a  scene  between  Demo  the  stam- 
merer and  Orestes  which  was  obviously  intro- 
duced to  humour  the  groundlings.  The  music 
is  made  to  drag  and  halt  while  the  unhappy 
Demo  struggles  with  a  word.  The  word  will 
not  come,  and,  disdaining  Orestes'  help,  the 
stammerer  stamps  off,  leaving  Orestes  to  sing  a 
soliloquy.  But,  in  the  midst  of  this  soliloquy. 
Demo  at  last  succeeds.  Quite  suddenly  he 
thrusts  in  his  head,  sings  the  missing  word,  and 
promptly  vanishes.  As  this  identical  trick  keeps 
cropping  up  as  one  of  the  most  excruciatingly 
odd  "  novelties  "  of  the  funny  men  at  the  panto- 
mimes and  music-halls,  it  is  worth  noting  that  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  it  was  becoming  a 
trifle  stale. 

While  the  public  fostered  buffoonery,  both 
princes  and  public  went  on  encouraging  the  ex- 
cessive scenic  display  which  has  enfeebled  opera 
just  as  a  load  of  golden  trappings  jades  a  spirited 
horse.  As  in  the  case  of  Meyerbeer  two  hundred 
years  later,  any  kind  of  flashy  music  would  pass 
provided  it  was  blared  and  pounded  out  in  the 
midst  of  a  gorgeous  stage  spectacle.     To   show 


134  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  lengths  which  Italians  were  eager  to  go  in 
Monteverde's  century,  it  is  worth  while  detailing 
some  of  the  supernumeraries  and  stage  properties 
required  for  the  performance  of  Freschi's  Berenice 
at  Padua.  Berenice's  gorgeous  car  was  drawn  by 
four  horses  ;  and  six  other  cars  which  figured 
in  the  spectacle  had  two  horses  each.  There 
were  also  six  chariots.  In  addition  to  the 
orchestra,  there  appeared  on  the  stage  six 
mounted  trumpeters,  six  drummers,  six  players 
of  sackbuts,  six  flautists,  six  cymbaleers,  and 
twelve  minstrels  playing  Turkish  and  other  in- 
struments. There  were  forty  cornets  on  horse- 
back, six  ensigns,  six  pages,  three  sergeants, 
twelve  huntsmen,  twelve  grooms,  and  twelve 
charioteers.  Two  lions  were  led  by  two  Turks, 
and  there  were  two  led  elephants.  To  fill  up, 
there  were  a  hundred  virgins  in  white,  a  hundred 
soldiers,  and  a  hundred  horsemen  in  iron  armour. 
The  action  of  the  piece  also  demanded  "  a  forest 
filled  with  wild  boar,  deer,  and  bears." 

To  hold  its  own  against  such  tumultuous  and 
glittering  pageantry  as  this,  stage-music  neces- 
sarily became  showy  and  brazen.  And,  having 
once  acquired  a  taste  for  pompous  and  theatrical 


MONTEVERDE  135 

strains,  the  Italians  quickly  lost  patience  with  the 
gravity  and  humility  of  the  music  ot  the  Church. 
Made  impudent  by  the  cheap  swiftness  and  vast- 
ness  of  their  success,  some  of  Bardi's  Floren- 
tines soon  began  to  call  the  works  of  Palestrina 
"  barbarous,"  while  Pietro  della  Valle  (he  of  the 
perambulating  cart)  sneered  at  them  as  "  anti- 
quities only  fit  for  a  museum." 

Monteverde  died  in  1643  i^^^  '^^  ^^5^  ^^  ^^ 
often  stated),  and  was  buried  amidst  general 
mourning  in  the  Church  of  the  Frari.  In  propor- 
tion to  the  threescore  and  fifteen  years  of  his  life, 
his  musical  remains,  in  print  and  in  manuscript, 
are  scanty.  But  his  influence,  for  good  and  for 
evil,  was  enormous.  He  was  like  a  king  who,  in 
order  to  fortify  a  newly-won  province,  tears  down 
the  dykes  of  his  forefathers  and  abandons  the 
rich  and  legendary  lowlands  to  the  waves.  Had 
Monteverde  merely  banished  the  methods  of 
Church  music  from  the  natural  and  innocent 
recreations  of  the  World,  his  work  would  be 
entirely  honourable.  But  he  was  not  content 
with  driving  the  Church's  music  out  of  the  World. 
He  forced  the  World's  music  into  the  Church  as 
well.     And  yet  one  must  not  judge  him  harshly. 


136  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

He  was  driven  forward  by  forces  stronger  than 
himself,  and  he  could  not  foresee  the  excesses  of 
his  Italian  fellow-countrymen  who,  while  they  are 
the  friends  of  petty  or  trashy  tunes,  are  none  the 
less  the  enemies  of  high  music. 


LULLY 

"IXZHILE  everybody  knows  a  good  deal  about 
Le  Grand  Monarque,  few  people  out  of 
France  know  much  about  La  Grande  Mademoi- 
selle. Yet  Louise  d'Orleans,  Mademoiselle  de 
Montpensier,  stands  in  the  first  rank  of  notable 
Frenchwomen.  Of  royal  blood  and  possessed  of 
enormous  wealth  in  her  own  right,  she  fully  ex- 
pected to  become  the  bride  of  the  boy-king  Louis 
XIV,  although  he  was  by  fifteen  years  her  junior. 
La  Grande  Mademoiselle  was  also  a  serious  can- 
didate for  the  hand  of  Charles  II  of  England. 
But  her  wild  audacities  lifted  her  not  upon  a 
throne  but  upon  the  shelf.  During  the  disturb- 
ances which  attended  Mazarin's  regency,  it  was  La 
Grande  Mademoiselle  who  "  captured  "  Orleans, 
taking  it  by  escalade  like  an  opera-bouife  Joan  of 
Arc.  Again,  it  was  La  Grande  Mademoiselle 
who  commanded  in  person  the  forts  at  Paris  which 
fired  on  the  royal  troops  under  Turenne.    No 

137 


138  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

wonder  that  Her  Altitude  came  to  be  regarded 
nervously  by  Majesties  in  search  of  a  bride. 

Into  the  great  household  of  this  stormy  lady, 
about  the  year  1645,  there  entered  a  twelve-year- 
old  boy  named  Giambattista.  He  was  the  son  of 
Lorenzo  de'  Lulli,  an  impecunious  nobleman  of 
Florence,  and  of  Catarina  del  Serta  his  wife. 
While  travelling  through  Tuscany,  the  Chevalier 
de  Guise  had  been  so  much  astonished  by  the  lad's 
playing  and  singing  that  he  bore  him  off  to  France 
as  a  treasure  for  Mademoiselle,  who  had  expressed 
a  wish  for  an  Italian  boy-musician.  But  Mademoi- 
selle was  either  grossly  forgetful  or  distinctly  con- 
temptuous of  the  Chevalier's  musical  judgment  ; 
for  Giambattista — or  Jean  Baptiste  de  Lully,  as 
he  came  to  be  called — was  set  to  work  not  as  a 
fiddler,  but  as  a  scullion  in  the  kitchen. 

Under  an  old  Franciscan  friar  the  boy  had 
picked  up  sundry  polite  accomplishments,  es- 
pecially the  playing  of  the  guitar.  He  had  also 
become  an  exceptional  performer  on  the  violin. 
After  a  time.  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier  either 
discovered  or  remembered  these  facts,  and  was 
graciously  pleased  to  raise  her  little  scullion  to  a 
place  in  her  private  band.     Unhappily,  however. 


LULLY  139 

the  new  bandsman  boasted  poetical  as  well  as 
musical  gifts.  In  a  sprightly  poem,  intended  for 
private  circulation  only,  he  satirized  Made- 
moiselle's foibles  much  too  neatly.^  Echoes  of  his 
verses  reached  the  great  lady's  ears,  and  the  poet 
was  promptly  sent  about  his  business. 

Outside  the  fact  that  he  contrived  to  receive 
lessons  in  organ-playing  and  composition  from 
highly  reputable  masters,  we  know  little  of  Jean 
Baptiste's  doings  during  the  three  or  four  years 
following  his  indiscretion.  Probably  he  basked 
in  the  favour  of  a  less  magnificent  but  more  ser- 
viceable patron.  But,  about  1651,  he  seems  to 
have  squeezed  his  way  into  the  service  of  the 
King.^     As  a  member  of  the  string  band  called 

1  LuUy's  wit  may  be  illustrated  by  his  retort  to  the  officer  who  came  to 
him  as  the  curtain  was  about  to  rise  on  the  first  performance  of  lArmide 
with  the  words  "The  King  is  waiting."  "The  King  is  master  here,"  said 
LuUy,  "and  no  one  has  the  right  to  prevent  him  waiting  as  long  as  he 
pleases." 

2  A  discreet  disclosure  by  some  favourite  of  the  facts  about  LuUy's  poem 
may  have  helped  to  excite  the  interest  of  Louis  in  the  young  man.  Cer- 
tainly there  was  no  love  lost  between  Louis  XIV  and  Mademoiselle  de 
Montpensier,  even  before  her  military  escapades  had  roused  his  anger. 
Mademoiselle's  chagrin  at  her  protracted  spinsterhood  (of  which  her  proposal 
for  a  Society  of  Ladies  "sans  mariage  et  sans  amour"  was  only  one 
symptom)  naturally  involved  resentment  against  Louis,  who  would  neither 
marry  her  himself  nor  forward  her  marriage  with  another.  But  without 
some  such  explanation  as  this  it  is  hard  to  account  for  the  King's  lavish 
patronage  of  the  man  who  had  lampooned  the  Princess. 


140  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

"  Les  Violons  du  Roy  "  he  distinguished  himself 
so  quickly  that,  in  1 652,  the  King  formed  a  second 
band,  *'  Les  petits  Violons  de  Sa  Majeste,"  with 
LuUy  as  its  chief.  Thus,  at  the  age  of  twenty, 
the  scullion  from  Florence  was  firmly  established 
in  a  position  which,  by  such  varied  means  as 
genius,  cunning,  industry,  greed,  ambition,  and 
thoroughgoing  unscrupulousness,  he  maintained 
until  his  dying  day. 

Louis  XIV  was  devoted  to  the  dance.  Few 
things  pleased  him  more  than  to  take  part  in 
some  stately  masque  or  ballet.  Two  hundred 
years  before  the  invention  of  music-drama  by 
Bardi  and  his  Florentines,  the  French  Court  had 
begun  to  enjoy  entertainments  called  "  Mas- 
carades,"  wherein  gorgeous  stage-spectacle  was 
relieved  by  song  and  dance.  Under  Louis  XIII, 
himself  a  composer,  the  musical  element  in  these 
masques  had  become  important.  For  example, 
at  the  mascarade  of  La  Delivrance  de  Renault, 
which  was  performed  in  16 17  with  the  King 
himself  in  the  role  of  the  Demon  of  the  Fire, 
there  was  a  choir  of  sixty-four  singers  backed  up 
by  an  orchestra  of  thirty-eight  lutes  and  viols. 
The   Queen,   Anne   of  Austria,   vied    with    the 


LULLY  141 

King  in  promoting  such  shows  ;  and  during  the 
Regency  which  followed  the  death  of  Louis, 
Anne  and  Cardinal  Mazarin  attempted  to  im- 
prove the  mascarades  into  operas  by  bringing  to 
Paris  a  company  of  Italian  singers  and  players. 
But  the  Court,  after  hearing  the  Florentine  operas, 
continued  to  prefer  the  native  mascarades  ;  and 
one  of  the  Court  ladies  has  left  behind  her  a 
plaintive  record  of  a  long,  long  Italian  perfor- 
mance one  Shrove  Tuesday  at  the  Palais  Royal 
during  which  she  nearly  died  of  boredom  and 
cold.  Accordingly  opera  was  languishing  and 
ballet  was  flourishing  when  Louis  XIV  took  the 
kingly  power  into  his  own  hands. 

The  liking  for  the  dance  which  the  young 
ruler  had  inherited  from  his  father  became  a 
passion  ;  and  Lully  satisfied  it  by  pouring  out  a 
stream  of  chaconnes,  sarabandes,  gigues  and 
courantes  for  daily  performance,  and  also  by 
fitting  dance-music  to  the  masques  and  other 
divertissements  provided  by  the  Court  poets. 
Like  Orlandus  Lassus,  whom  he  resembled  in 
versatility  and  industry  though,  unhappily,  not 
in  soundness  and  kindness  of  heart,  Lully  ad- 
vanced in  his  master's  favour  through  a  knack 


142  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

of  "  making  things  go."  Having  composed 
music  for  a  ballet  or  a  ballet-comedy,  he  was 
equally  able  either  to  play  one  of  the  violins  in 
the  orchestra  or  to  mount  the  stage  as  an  actor 
and  dancer.  It  is  known,  for  instance,  that  he 
played  the  title-part  in  Moliere's  Monsieur  de 
Pourceaugnac. 

But  while  Lully,  who  cared  much  less  for 
music's  progress  than  for  his  own,  was  merely 
pampering  the  dance-loving  King,  more  earnest 
composers  were  steadily  working  in  the  cause  of 
opera.  These  men  believed  that  the  Italian 
music-dramas  were  too  heavy,  and  that  French- 
men, with  their  immemorial  talent  for  bright 
rhythm  and  clear  tune,  were  called  to  evolve  a 
new  kind  of  opera  in  which  lyrical  beauty  and 
freedom  should  displace  the  sombreness  and 
monotony  of  recitative.  But  they  went  about 
their  work  in  a  patriotic  temper.  Instead  of  taking 
up  the  Italian  model  provided  by  Monteverde 
and  his  disciple  Cavalli  and  infusing  into  it  a 
French  spirit,  they  turned  to  their  own  native 
mascarades  and  tried  to  remodel  them  on 
dramatic  lines. 

The  history  of  opera  in  Italy  repeated  itself  to 


LULLY  143 

some  extent  in  France  ;  for  the  first  performance 
of  a  French  opera,  properly  so  called,  took  place 
in  a  private  house.  In  1659,  at  Issy,  near 
Paris,  Monsieur  de  la  Haye,  the  Farmer- 
General,  invited  the  grand  world  to  his  country 
seat  in  order  that  they  might  assist  at  the 
"  premiere  comedie  fran9aise  en  musique  repre- 
sentee en  France."  The  piece  was  a  Pastoral, 
written  by  Pierre  Perrin  and  set  to  music  by 
Robert  Cambert.  Cambert  was  chapel-master 
and  organist  of  Saint  Honore,  Perrin  was  a 
priest,  and  Mazarin,  one  of  the  most  active 
patrons  of  the  new  venture,  was  of  course  a 
Cardinal  Prince  of  Holy  Roman  Church.  French 
opera,  therefore,  was  born  in  an  odour  of 
sanctity,  and  its  churchly  send-off  opened  a  way 
even  into  the  most  jealously  guarded  hearts. 
By  royal  command,  the  Pastoral  was  repeated 
before  their  Majesties  at  Vincennes.  The 
intellectuals  of  France  soared  into  ecstasies  of 
delighted  pride  when  they  found  that  a  French 
Rinuccini  and  a  French  Peri  had  appeared  in 
their  midst  ;  and  although  not  a  note  of 
Cambert's  music  has  been  preserved,  the  chroni- 
cles of  the  time  bear  witness  to  its  effect  upon 


144  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

those  who  heard  it.  So  enthusiastic  were 
Cambert's  fellow-countrymen,  that  when  Cavalli's 
Serse  was  brought  over  from  Italy  the  year 
following  and  performed  in  the  Palace  of  the 
Louvre  on  the  occasion  of  the  King's  marriage, 
many  of  Serse  s  auditors  grudged  it  their  ears. 

Perrin  and  Cambert  eagerly  made  plans  for 
following  up  their  success.  They  boldly  chose 
an  ambitious  theme,  and  set  to  work  on  an  opera 
to  be  called  Ariane :  ou  le  Manage  de  Bacchus. 
But  opera  is  a  world  in  which  there  have  always 
been  more  breakdowns  and  missfires  than  in 
any  other.  In  1660  died  Gaston  of  Orleans,  in 
whose  service  the  Abbe  Perrin  held  the  enviable 
post  of  "  Introducer  of  Ambassadors."  A  year 
later  died  Cardinal  Mazarin.  French  opera  was 
silenced  for  ten  years,  and  Ariane  was  never 
written. 

Meanwhile,  Lully  went  on  manufacturing  his 
monthly  tale  of  dance-tunes.  But  Perrin  watched 
the  times,  and  prepared  himself  to  make  full  use 
of  the  next  opportunity.  His  chance  seemed  to 
come  in  1669,  when  Louis  XIV  gave  him  by 
letters  patent  an  operatic  monopoly  for  all  France. 
The  letters  patent  empowered  Perrin  to  set  up 


LULLY  145 

throughout  the  kingdom  "  Academies  d'Opera," 
the  operas  to  be  in  the  French  language.  Perrin, 
who  was  a  loyal  friend  as  well  as  a  scholar  and 
an  artist,  at  once  turned  to  his  old  collaborator 
Cambert,  and  the  two  fell  to  work  upon  Pomone, 
a  rustic  opera  prudently  resembling  the  Pastoral 
with  which  they  had  triumphed  ten  years  before. 
As  the  public  insisted  upon  showy  spectacles  as 
well  as  drama,  dance,  and  song,  a  third  partner 
was  found  in  the  person  of  the  Marquis  de 
Sourdeac,  who  was  famous  as  a  stage-machinist. 
Nearly  two  years  passed  before  all  was  ready  ; 
but  when  Pomone  was  brought  to  a  hearing  in 
Paris  its  reception  paid  amply  for  all  the  pains 
that  had  been  poured  out  upon  it.  Poynones 
poem  and  music  are  both  extant,  but  they  are 
sorely  disappointing  on  the  dramatic  side.  In- 
deed, after  all  that  Perrin  had  said  and  written 
about  his  aims,  it  is  puzzling  to  find  his  opera 
hardly  distinguishable  from  a  masque  with  reci- 
tatives. 

The  next  chapter  in  the  story  of  French  opera 
— the  chapter  in  which  Lully  enters  as  the 
cynical  and  successful  villain — is  obscure.  Ac- 
cording to  some  accounts  the  run  oi  Pomone  and 


K 


146  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  other  performances  of  the  Perrin,  Cambert, 
and  de  Sourdeac  syndicate  were  so  lucrative 
that  Perrin  alone  received  30,000  livres  in 
eight  months.  According  to  others,  however, 
Perrin  was  being  dunned  within  twelve  months 
for  money  which  he  owed  to  the  Marquis  in 
respect  of  scenery  and  stage  apparatus.  In  any 
case,  it  is  beyond  dispute  that  Perrin  retired 
from  the  partnership,  and  that  the  book  of  words 
for  Pomones  equally  undramatic  successor,  Les 
Peines  et  les  Plaisirs  de  V Amour ^  was  written  for 
Cambert  and  de  Soudeac  by  one  Gilbert,  secre- 
tary to  the  Queen  of  Sweden.  But  Perrin  still 
enjoyed  rights  under  the  King's  letters  patent. 
In  opposition  to  his  old  friends,  he  associated 
with  himself  a  musician  named  de  Sablieres  and 
a  poet  named  Guichard.  Thus  was  opera,  in 
the  first  year  of  its  official  existence,  vexed  by 
the  rivalries  and  schisms  which  have  alternately 
embittered  and  stimulated  composers  through 
the  epochs  of  Handel  and  Buononcini,  of  Gluck 
and  Piccini,  right  down  to  our  own  day. 

To  these  troubled  waters  Lully  promptly  came 
a-fishing.  Hitherto  he  had  only  served  opera 
by  brightening  the  works  of  Cavalli  with  extra 


LULLY  147 

numbers  in  the  shape  of  dance-tunes,  but  he 
saw  that  his  chance  had  come  for  entering  into 
the  fruit  of  others'  labours.  By  playing  off  one 
man  against  another,  and  by  judiciously  investing 
part  of  his  considerable  savings,  he  was  able  to 
buy  out  Perrin  and  to  get  the  operatic  monopoly 
into  his  own  hands.  More.  He  prevailed  upon 
the  King  to  make  the  new  letters-patent  much 
more  sweeping  than  those  which  had  been 
granted  to  Perrin.  The  theatres  lying  outside 
the  golden  circle  of  Lully's  monopoly  were  for- 
bidden to  employ  more  than  two  singers  each, 
while  their  stringed  instruments  were  restricted 
to  six.  By  these  greedy  tactics  Lully  intended 
to  enrich  himself  at  the  expense  of  old  friends. 
For  example,  Moliere,  who  had  helped  Lully 
with  loans  in  the  ex-scullion's  less  prosperous 
days,  could  not  possibly  keep  up  the  standard  of 
his  ballet-comedies  with  only  six  players  and  two 
singers.  As  for  Cambert,  the  pioneer  of  French 
opera  and  Lully's  old  colleague,  he  was  driven  to 
England  before  the  year  was  out  solely  through 
Lully's  intrigues. 

But  in  spite  of   his  despicable   machinations, 
Lully  did  a  great  work  in  music,  and  he  left  opera 


148  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

immeasurably  better  than  he  found  it.  The 
patent  which  had  granted  to  him  the  monopoly 
of  operatic  representations  in  France  provided 
that  Quinault  should  be  his  librettist  and  St. 
Ouen  his  theatrical  machinist.  These  were  com- 
petent men.  Quinault,  in  particular,  did  his 
work  so  well  that  his  libretti  survive  among  the 
very  few  opera-texts  which  are  readable  apart 
from  the  music.  But  Lully's  was  the  master- 
spirit, and  even  Quinault's  efficiency  was  largely 
due  to  Lully's  cunning  in  managing  men.  When 
one  of  Lully's  operas  failed,  the  composer  thrust 
his  librettist  aside  and  bought  two  texts  from  the 
brother  of  Corneille  ;  but  in  the  main  he  pre- 
ferred Quinault,  and  in  order  to  extract  from 
him  a  supply  of  dramas  written  precisely  to  his 
own  recipe,  Lully  made  it  a  rule  to  pay  the 
poet  a  yearly  sum  of  4000  francs,  or  double 
the  sum  which  Quinault  received  from  the 
King. 

Anticipating  Wagner,  Lully  regarded  the  writ- 
ing of  music  as  only  a  part  of  his  business. 
Having  been  both  an  actor  and  an  orchestral 
player  himself,  he  knew  what  could  be  done,  and 
insisted  on  his  subordinates  doing  it.     He  was 


Philippe  Quinault. 

After  Dubasty. 


LULLY  149 

indefatigable  in  drilling  the  performers,  and  no 
detail  was  too  great  or  too  small  for  him,  from 
the  facial  expression  of  the  dying  Armida  to  the 
nosegay  nursed  by  the  clumsiest  shepherdess  in 
the  chorus.  Like  many  other  clear-headed  and 
energetic  men,  he  was  goaded  almost  to  madness 
by  the  slackness  and  stupidity  of  others.  It  is 
said  that  he  once  tore  a  violin  from  the  grasp  of 
a  luckless  player  and  smashed  it  to  splinters 
across  the  blunderer's  back.  At  other  times  he 
was  known  to  strike  and  even  kick  the  singers 
when  they  would  not  or  could  not  sing  as  he 
intended.  But  the  outcome  of  his  domineering 
and  violence  was  a  dramatic  truthfulness  to  which 
the  Italians  (especially  the  Neapolitans,  whose  star 
was  already  outshining  that  of  the  more  earnest 
Florentines)  made  no  pretence.  Indeed,  there 
are  Italian  opera-houses  even  in  this  twentieth 
century  where,  except  in  the  single  point  of  vocal 
display,  the  performances  remain  far  below  the 
standard  of  the  seventeenth-century  Lully.  Our 
so-called  "  great "  Italian  tenors  are  nearly  all 
mere  vocalists  and  dogged  enemies  of  art  for 
want  of  a  Lully  with  the  power  and  the  will  to 
hold  them  in  their  due  places. 


ISO  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Two  or  three  of  the  operas  or  "  lyrical 
tragedies  "  of  Lully  and  Quinault  were  based  on 
the  romances  of  chivalry,  such  as  Roland^  Armide^ 
and  Amadis.  But  most  of  them  professed  to 
recall  the  tragedies  of  the  ancient  Greeks.  The 
classical  revival  which  preoccupied  the  mind  of 
artistic  Europe  for  over  three  hundred  years  was 
at  its  height  in  France  under  Louis  XIV,  and 
accordingly  there  is  nothing  surprising  in  the  list 
of  Lully's  principal  operas  which  included  lyrical 
versions  of  the  stories  of  Alcestis,  of  Theseus,  of 
Perseus,  of  Proserpina,  of  Cadmus,  of  Atys,  of 
Phaeton.  Without  doubt  the  boasted  classical 
revival  was  a  bungling  affectation.  Nothing 
could  possibly  have  been  devised  that  would 
have  been  more  alien  from  the  Greek  spirit  than 
the  pomposity  of  Le  Grand  Monarque  and  his 
Court ;  and  Lully  and  Quinault  invariably  por- 
trayed the  gods  and  goddesses  and  heroes  and 
heroines  of  the  Greek  mythology  not  as  they 
were,  but  as  Lully's  and  Quinault's  half-educated 
patrons  thought  they  ought  to  have  been.  When 
Alcestis  became  Alceste  and  Theseus  Thes6e,  those 
great  ones  changed  more  than  their  names  ;  and 
if    the    ghost    of    Euripides    ever    strayed    into 


LULLY  151 

Lully's  theatre,  he  would  have  been  sorely  puzzled 
as  to  what  it  was  all  about.  But  this  was  only  a 
small  blemish  on  Lully's  work.  In  art,  historical 
accuracy  is  not  one  of  the  cardinal  virtues.  The 
point  is,  that  Lully  succeeded  in  making  Quin- 
ault's  un-Greek,  Frenchified  heroines  and  heroes 
behave  themselves  in  the  musical  and  dramatic 
ways  which  led  to  a  convincing  result  of  noble 
tragedy. 

A  Lully-Quinault  opera  always  began  with  an 
overture  in  which  a  massive  and  grandiose  slow- 
movement  was  followed  by  a  longer  quick-move- 
ment, the  whole  being  rounded  off  by  a  last 
movement  as  majestic  and  sonorous  as  the  first. 
This  was  the  famous  form  known  among 
musicians  as  "  the  Lullian  overture "  ;  for  al- 
though Lully  took  the  pattern  from  Cambert, 
he  wrought  it  so  well  that,  outside  Italy,  this 
form  of  overture  was  taken  by  composers  as  a 
model  for  a   hundred  years.^     As  the  orchestra 

^  As  Lully's  operas  practically  ceased  to  be  performed  before  the  French 
Revolution,  and  as  his  scores  are  not  in  general  circulation,  it  may  be  useful 
to  say  that  the  overture  to  Handel's  Messiah  would  be  a  Lullian  overture 
if  it  closed  with  a  repetition  of  the  opening  movement.  The  fugue  (i.e. 
the  second  or  quick  movement)  of  the  Messiah  overture  is  far  finer  than 
anything  of  the  kind  in  Lully  ;  but  Handel's  slow  movement,  grand  as  it 
is,  is  not  grander  than  some  of  Lully's  opening?. 


152  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

was  large  and  well  rehearsed  the  effect  must  have 
been  impressive.  As  soon  as  the  broad  and 
solemn  chords  of  the  slow-movement  had  com- 
posed the  hearer  to  a  mood  of  noble  sorrow,  the 
quick-movement  bustled  in  to  rescue  him  from 
the  perils  of  morbidness  ;  and,  although  no  such 
moralizing  was  intended  by  the  musician,  the 
whole  overture  prepared  the  mind  for  a  true 
vision  of  human  life,  compact  as  it  is  of  sun- 
shine and  rain,  of  laughter  and  tears. 

The  overture  was  followed  by  the  prologue. 
The  Nine  Muses,  the  Three  Graces,  and  the 
gods  and  goddesses  of  War  and  Love,  of  Earth 
and  Fire  and  Sea,  were  usually  in  evidence  with 
their  attendant  trains  of  sylphs,  amoretti,  and 
demons.  Along  with  these  well-worn  mytho- 
logical personages  appeared  a  crowd  of  allegorical 
figures  representing  the  provinces  of  France  or 
the  nymphs  of  the  Seine,  or  anything  else  that 
could  be  made  the  mouthpiece  of  loyal  and 
patriotic  allusions  to  contemporary  events.  In 
the  course  of  the  prologue  the  King  could  de- 
pend on  receiving  a  musical  assurance  that  the 
Roman  emperors  would  have  envied  his  valour, 
might,  and  glory,  and  that  his  Queen  united  in 


LULLY  153 

her  person  the  charms  of  Juno,  Venus,  and 
Diana,  with  the  attractions  of  all  three  Graces 
thrown  in.  But  this  effusion  of  courtly  false- 
hood was  not  allowed  to  encroach  too  much 
upon  dramatic  propriety  ;  for  after  the  prologue 
was  finished  the  overture  was  played  through 
again  from  beginning  to  end,  and  then  the 
tragedy  opened.  Considering  the  times  in 
which  he  lived,  the  soundness  of  Lully's  genius 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  used  for  the  tragedy 
a  range  of  musical  effects  differing  widely  from 
the  music  of  the  prologue. 

One  of  the  evils  from  which  music-drama  still 
suffers  is  the  belief  of  composers  that  the  hero 
of  the  piece  must  be  a  tenor. ^  The  famous 
saying  that  "  tenor  is  not  a  voice  but  a  disease  " 
goes  too  far ;  but,  from  a  dramatic  point  of 
view,  it  is  regrettable  that  purely  musical  con- 
siderations have  led  composers  to  entrust  their 
manliest  part  to  the  singer  who  is  generally  the 
unmanliest-looking  and  the  unmanliest-sounding 
man  on  the  stage.  Lully,  with  his  sure  instinct, 
often  wrote  the  hero's  music  for  a  baritone  or 

^  Or,  worse  still,  an  "artificial  soprano,"  as  in  Handel's  finest  opera 
Rinaldo,  and  manjr  of  Rinaldo's  successors. 


154  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

a  bass  voice  with  which  his  martial  flourishes  of 
trumpets  were  quite  at  home.  As  for  the  music 
itself,  in  virtue  of  its  dignity  and  expressiveness 
it  stood  in  strong  contrast  with  the  glittering 
displays  of  mere  vocalization  which  have  made 
the  stage  sorrows  of  so  many  operatic  heroes 
and  heroines  ridiculous. 

The  reader  will  naturally  wonder  how  a  large 
number  of  dances  could  be  worked  into  Lully's 
lyrical  tragedies  without  ruining  their  dramatic 
effect.  In  regard  to  some  of  his  operas  the 
answer  is  simple.  For  example,  in  Roland,  while 
the  hero  is  seeking  his  faithless  Angelica  he 
passes  through  a  village  where  a  country 
wedding  is  in  progress.  In  this  case  it  is  obvious 
that  the  rustic  dances  are  appropriate  to  the 
dramatic  action.  They  are  no  more  irrelevant 
than  is  the  dance  of  apprentices  and  maidens 
on  the  banks  of  the  Pegnitz  in  Die  Meistersinger. 
But  in  other  instances  the  explanation  in  not 
so  ready  to  hand. 

First  of  all,  it  must  be  clearly  understood 
that  Lullian  stage  -  dancing  was  very  different 
from  ball-room  waltzing  and,  still  more,  from 
cake-walks   and  from  the  jerky,  tricky  ugliness 


LULLY    AND    HIS    COLLEAGUES. 

After  Rigaiid. 


LULLY  155 

of    modern    ballet.       It    was     dancing    full     of 
stately    comings    and    goings,   like    the    minuet, 
and   was   therefore   all   of  a  piece  with  the   un- 
flippant    LuUian    melody.     Second,    it    must   be 
remembered  that  in  attempting  to  revive  Greek 
tragedy    the    stage-managers     of    the    sixteenth 
century    felt    themselves    obliged    to    treat    the 
chorus  seriously.     Not  only  did  they  lay  upon 
the    chorus    its    ancient    task    of   acclaiming    or 
bewailing  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  protago- 
nists, but  they  also  gave  it  the  work  of  satisfying 
the    eye    with    a    rhythmical    background   as    of 
antique   statues   come   to   life.     To   the  modern 
musician  who  reads  the  scores  in  his  arm-chair, 
Lully's  finales  are  rhythmically  poor  ;  but  to  the 
eye  and  ears  of   contemporary  opera-goers  the 
whole   effect   of  the  passionate  violins  and   im- 
perious trumpets  and  ringing  voices  and  sway- 
ing bodies   must    have   been   rich   and   stirring. 
Lully   would   never   have   endured   the   familiar 
modern    chorus   which,   after   singing   the    most 
strangely  beautiful  strain  in  the  whole  opera  of 
Lohengrin^  relapses   into  a  mere  stage-crowd  of 
"  supers,"  and  listens  to  the  Grail-Knight's  dis- 
closure of  his  supernal  secret  with  an  amount  of 


156  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

emotion  and  surprise  which  could  not  be  smaller 
if  he  were  reciting  the  multiplication  table. 
Thin  as  they  were  musically,  Lully's  finales 
triumphed  because  every  part  of  the  whole,  from 
the  catgut  in  the  orchestra  to  the  fingers  and 
toes  of  the  chorus,  was  keenly  alive  and  proudly 
in  action.  At  a  later  stage,  ballet  became  a 
nuisance  to  opera  ;  ^  and  composers  of  music- 
drama  in  the  future  will  prefer  carefully  drilled 
stage-groups  in  shifting  poses  appropriate  to  the 
dramatic  action.  But,  in  opera's  childhood,  ballet 
was  all  for  the  best.  Not  only  did  it  fill  up 
what  would  otherwise  have  been  too  scanty  an 
outline,  but  it  also  helped  the  cause  of  music 
pure  and  simple  by  sharpening  men's  sense  of 
rhythm  and  form.  To  claim  for  Lully  that  he 
deliberately  made  the  dance  an  element  in  his 
operatic  scheme  because  he  saw  its  artistic 
possibilities  would  be  absurd  ;  for  he  merely 
accepted  the  legacy  of  the  old  mascarades.     But 

^  To  cite  one  example,  Tannhauser  was  damned  by  the  rattles  and 
penny-whistles  of  the  gilded  youth  of  Paris  chiefly  because  Wagner  had 
refused  to  insert  a  ballet  save  at  the  point  where  it  was  relevant — namely, 
in  Venus'  cave,  at  the  first  rising  of  the  curtain,  and  therefore  too  near 
dinner-time.  As  a  result,  France  went  many  years  without  Wagner,  to  her 
great  musical  loss. 


LULLY  157 

his  glory  remains.  He  poured  new  wine  into 
old  bottles  until  they  glowed  with  rose  and 
amber  light. 

It  is  through  the  medium  of  Madame 
de  Sevigne  that  posterity  has  chosen  to  judge 
the  small  quantity  of  extant  music  which  Lully 
wrote  for  the  services  of  the  Church.  In  a 
famous  letter  the  excellent  lady  assured  her 
daughter  that  Lully's  Libera  had  "  filled  all  eyes 
with  tears,"  and  that  Madame  de  Sevigne  her- 
self did  not  "  believe  that  there  could  be  any 
other  music  in  heaven."  On  the  strength  ot 
these  tributes  opinions  have  been  formed  which 
the  Libera  itself,  good  as  it  is,  cannot  sustain. 
The  mistake  has  arisen  through  reading  Madame 
too  literally  and  through  neglecting  the  context 
of  the  eulogy. 

It  is  possible  to  reconstruct  the  scene.  The 
minister  Seguier  had  died,  and  the  Academy  had 
deemed  it  fitting  to  erect  an  imposing  cata- 
falque in  honour  of  their  dead  patron.  The 
church  chosen  for  the  obsequies  was  that  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Oratory,  which  is  used  nowadays 
as  a  Protestant  temple.  As  is  proved  by  the 
accompanying    illustration    (reproduced    from    a 


158  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

print  of  the  time),  the  Academy  strenuously  did 
its  worst  in  assembling  pagan  emblems  of  hope- 
less woe.  Seguier's  being  what  would  be  called 
to-day  "  a  smart  death,"  all  Paris  assisted  at  his 
funeral,  and  Madame  de  Sevigne's  letter  of 
6  May,  1672,  written  on  the  morrow  of  the 
function,  seems  to  have  expressed  the  general 
satisfaction  with  the  decorations.  If  Lully's  Mise- 
rere indeed  sounded  well  amid  such  sights,  it 
can  hardly  have  been  church-music  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  term.  But  Madame  de  Sevigne's 
testimony  is  suspectable.  In  the  very  next 
sentence  to  that  in  which  she  protested  her 
belief  that  heaven  itself  could  have  no  nobler 
music,  she  went  straight  on  to  make  her  delicious 
jest  about  the  absent  Bishop  of  Marseilles,  who 
"  would  not  have  stayed  away  if  it  had  been  the 
funeral  of  some  one   still   living."  ^     In   short, 


'  Pour  la  musique,  c'est  une  chose  qu'on  ne  peut  pas  expliquer. 
Baptiste  [i.e.  LuUy]  avail  fait  un  dernier  effort  de  toute  la  musique  du 
roi  :  ce  beau  Miserere  y  etait  encore  augmente  ;  il  y  eut  un  Libera  ou  tous 
les  yeux  ^taient  pleins  de  larmes  ;  je  ne  crois  point  qu'il  y  ait  une  autre 
musique  dans  le  ciel.  II  y  avait  beaucoup  de  pr^lats  ;  j'ai  dit  a  Guitaut  ; 
cherchons  un  peu  notre  ami  Marseille,  nous  ne  I'avons  point  vu  ;  je  lui  ai 
dit  tout  bas  ;  Si  c'etait  I'oraison  funebre  de  quelqu'un  qui  fut  vivant,  il  n'y 
manquerait  pas.  Cette  folie  a  fait  rire  Guitaut,  sans  aucun  respect  pour  la 
pompe  funebre. 


The  (Jbseijl'ies  uf  Skguier. 

After  Le  Brnn. 


LULLY  159 

Madame's  musical  attitude  appears  to  have 
resembled  that  of  the  young  matron  who, 
having  always  declared  that  she  "  loved  music 
passionately,"  startled  an  audience  during  a 
sudden  and  unexpected  pause  after  a  crashing 
orchestral  fortissimo  with  the  words,  "  They're 
much  nicer  boiled." 

It  was  in  this  same  year,  1672,  that  Lully 
produced  his  opera  Les  Fites  de  T Amour  et  Bacchus^ 
with  which  the  new  theatre  near  the  Luxem- 
bourg first  opened  its  doors  ;  and  thereafter  he 
never  failed  to  bring  forward  at  least  one  new 
opera  a  year  until  his  death  in  1687.  During 
these  fifteen  years  his  wealth  grew  so  enormously 
that  it  amounted  at  his  death  to  about  800,000 
livres,  partly  in  investments,  partly  in  sacks  of 
Spanish  doubloons  and  other  gold.  By  heartless 
cunning  he  succeeded  in  crushing  out  potential 
rivals  so  thoroughly  that,  to  borrow  a  phrase 
from  modern  mercantile  slang,  he  practically 
"made  a  corner  in  music."  His  alert  and  sagacious 
greed  taught  him  to  evade  all  possible  expenses 
as  well  as  to  woo  emoluments  and  profits  ;  and 
when,  in  168  i,  he  was  ennobled  and  naturalized 
as   a  Frenchman,  he   managed    to   obtain    these 


i6o  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

favours  and  honours  without  paying  a  sou  of 
the  usual  stamp-duties  into  the  exchequer  of  the 
nation  where  he  had  won  fame  and  fortune.  He 
held  non-musical  sinecures  as  well  as  his  appoint- 
ments as  composer  to  the  King,  as  sole  music- 
master  to  the  Royal  Family,  and  as  "  Surinten- 
dant  de  la  Musique  de  la  Chambre  du  Roy." 
Even  his  marriage  (which  took  place  ten  years 
before  his  emergence  as  a  composer  of  operas) 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  disinterested  ;  for 
he  took  care  to  choose  as  a  bride  a  daughter  of 
the  influential  musician  Lambert,  "  Master  of 
the  Court  Music."  Notwithstanding  the  calls 
upon  his  time  and  strength  made  both  by  his 
multiform  duties  and  by  his  incessant  intriguing, 
he  found  leisure  to  watch  the  property-market 
and  to  make  large  profits  out  of  cunning  invest- 
ments in  bricks  and  mortar.  Sweetest  of  all,  he 
could  look  down  from  his  pinnacle  of  prosperity 
at  his  luckless  old  mistress  La  Grande  Made- 
moiselle, whose  tardily-found  husband,  a  mere 
nobleman,  had  already  said  to  her  :  "  Louise  of 
Orleans,  pull  off  my  boots." 

Lully's  premature  death  at  the  age  of  fifty-four 
is  said  to  have  been  caused  by  one  of  his  explo- 


LULLY  i6i 

sions  of  temper.  To  celebrate  the  King's  re- 
covery from  an  illness  he  had  written  a  Te  Demjij 
and  in  beating  time  angrily  with  his  bamboo  cane 
he  struck  his  foot  so  violently  as  to  inflict  a 
wound  which  killed  him.  The  anecdotes  of  his 
death-bed,  by  which,  much  more  than  by  his 
music,  Lully  is  known  to  the  general  reader,  are 
contradictory  and  distrustworthy.  According  to 
the  common  account,  his  confessor  only  con- 
sented to  administer  the  last  sacraments  on  con- 
dition that  the  manuscript  of  the  dying  man's 
unfinished  opera  should  be  thrown  into  the  fire. 
Lully,  says  the  anecdote,  gave  his  consent  and 
received  the  last  consolations  of  religion  ;  but 
when  the  holy  man  had  left  the  house  it  was 
found  that  the  score  of  the  condemned  work  was 
safely  under  lock  and  key,  and  that  the  MSS. 
which  had  burned  so  brightly  in  the  grate  were 
band  and  voice  parts  only.  In  a  later  and  em- 
bellished form  the  story  states  that  Lully  repented 
of  his  sacrilegious  duplicity  within  twenty-four 
hours,  and  allowed  the  score  to  follow  the  parts 
into  the  flam.es.^     In  opposition  to  all  this  it  is 

1  This  fuller  version  is  disposed  of  by  the  fact  that  LuUy's  last  opera 
still  exists.    It  is  called  Achilk  et  Polixine,  and  was  completed  very  finely 


i62  GREAT  MUSIClAISrS 

said  that  Lully's  eleventh-hour  conversion  was 
complete  ;  that  he  repented  bitterly  his  thousand 
meannesses  to  brother  artists  ;  that  he  sang  (some 
say  composed)  on  his  death-bed  the  penitential 
Bisogna  morire^  peccatore ;  ^  and,  in  short,  that  he 
made  a  good  end.  Some  support  is  given  to 
this  more  charitable  version  of  his  dying  by  the 
fact  that  Quinault,  after  his  old  collaborator's 
funeral,  became  devout,  and  busied  himself  with 
an  edifying  poem  called  The  Destruction  of  Heresy, 
As  certain  works  of  reference  persist  in  an 
error  about  the  splendid  monument  in  the  church 
of  the  Petits  Peres,  erected  by  Lully's  family  in 
spite  of  their  parsimony,  it  may  save  artistic 
pilgrims  to  Paris  some  trouble  to  state  the 
actual  facts.  Lully's  modest  monument  as  it 
exists  to-day  is  in  the  church  of  Notre  Dame  des 
Victoires,  and  is  so  placed  that  a  stranger  could 
hardly  find  it  without  instructions.  Over  the 
lintel  of  a  doorway  connecting  two  chapels  on  the 

indeed  by  Lully's  pupil  Colasse.  As  for  the  anecdote  as  a  whole,  it  is  true 
that  the  Church  frowned  upon  actors  ;  but,  seeing  that  abb^s,  both  in 
Lully's  century  and  in  the  century  following,  wrote  operatic  libretti  with- 
out incurring  ecclesiastical  censures,  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  a  confessor 
would  order  the  destruction  of  a  mere  musical  setting. 

1  Referred  to  in  one  modern  account  of  LuUy,  with  a  disastrous  absence 
of  punctuation,  as  II  faut  mourir  pecheur. 


LULLY  163 

north  side  of  the  nave  may  be  seen  a  portrait- 
bust  in  relief.  LuUy's  name  does  not  appear, 
save  in  the  following  inscription  carved  on  a  stone 
slab  which  forms  the  under-side  of  the  lintel 
itself  in  the  thickness  of  the  wall. 

PERFIDA  MORS,  INIMICA,  AUDAX,  TEMERARIA  ET  EXCORS, 
CRUDEL1S(2UE    E    CAECA    PROBRIS    TE    ABSOLVIMUS  ISTIS, 
NON    DE    TE    QUERIMUR    TUA    SINT    HAEC    MUNIA    MAGNA, 
SED    QUANDO    PER    TE    POPULI    REGISQUE    VOLUPTAS 
NON    ANTE    AUDITIS    RAPUIT    QUI    CANTIBUS    ORBEM 
LULLIUS    ERIPITUR    QUERIMUR    MODA    SURDA    FUISTI. 

The  slab  inscribed  with  these  non-Christian 
verses  is  incongruously  placed  amid  innumerable 
votive  tablets  bearing  golden  legends  of  thanks 
to  Our  Lady  of  Victories.  These  tablets  are 
mostly  of  recent  date,  and  there  is  no  day  in  the 
year  when  their  gilded  letterings  do  not  shine  in 
the  light  of  the  many  candles  placed  by  the  faith- 
ful around  Our  Lady's  altar.  On  high  days  the 
church  resounds  with  the  Sahe  Regina,  which  was 
old  when  Lully's  music  was  new,  and  with  the 
chants  which  are  still  new  now  that  Lully's 
music  is  old  and  half-forgotten.  Populi  regisque 
voluptas  !  The  epitaph  has  an  odd  sound  in  such 
a  scene.  And  yet  it  is  good  to  take  leave  of 
Lully  amid  so  much  faith  and  hope  and  charity. 


i64  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Borne  away  from  home  and  fatherland  before  he 
was  in  his  teens,  and  flung  straightway  into  the 
midst  of  mean  and  heartless  self-seekers,  he 
hardly  had  a  moral  and  spiritual  chance.  No  doubt 
he  was  as  much  intrigued  against  as  intriguing, 
and  in  driving  his  weaker  brethren  to  the  wall  he 
was  only  acting  like  the  other  strong  men  in  the 
worthless  Court  which  was  his  world.  But  what- 
ever may  be  thought  of  him  as  a  man,  he  needs 
no  defence  as  a  musician  ;  for  although  he  grabbed 
his  monopoly  like  a  sordid  tradesman,  he  used  it 
like  a  fine  and  conscientious  artist. 


RAMEAU 

npHREE  statues  of  composers  greet  visitors 
to  the  magnificent  seat  of  Grand  Opera  in 
Paris.  They  are  the  effigies  of  Lully,  of 
Rameau,  and  of  Gluck,  the  three  chief  glories 
of  classical  French  opera.  But  it  is  important 
to  remember  that  these  three  giants  were  not  all 
three  Frenchmen.  Lully  was  an  Italian,  Gluck 
was  a  German,  and  only  Rameau  was  a  French- 
born  son  of  France. 

While  Lully  was  multiplying  lyrical  tragedies 
and  piling  up  hard  coin  of  the  realm  in  Paris, 
a  respectable  musician  named  Jean  Rameau  was 
playing  the  organ  in  the  hoary  cathedral  of 
Dijon.  To  this  worthy  man  was  born,  on 
25  September,  1683 — four  years  before  Lully 's 
death — a  son,  who  received  the  Christian  names 
of  Jean  Philippe.  Rameau  pere  could  not  be 
expected  to  guess  that  his  boy  was  destined  to 
take  the  torch  of  French  opera  from  the  hand 

165 


i66  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

of  LuUy  and  to  pass  it  on,  more  gloriously  flam- 
ing, to  a  genius  far  greater  than  the  great  Lully 
himself.  Besides,  one  of  Jean  Philippe's  brothers, 
Claude  by  name,  had  already  been  dedicated  to 
his  father's  profession  of  organ-playing.  It  was 
therefore  decided  that  Jean  Philippe  should 
neglect  music  and  apply  himself  to  the  study  of 
the  law  with  a  view  to  gaining  the  honourable 
position  of  a  magistrate. 

But  Jean  Philippe  Rameau  anticipated  Robert 
Schumann,  who  gave  his  guardians  the  slip  when 
they  set  themselves  to  turn  him  into  a  lawyer 
against  his  bent  as  a  musician.  The  young 
Rameau,  however,  was  more  precocious  than  the 
young  Schumann.  In  Schumann's  case  the  battle 
of  music  was  not  pitched  and  won  until  he  had 
come  to  manhood  ;  but  in  Rameau's  the  law  was 
routed  while  he  was  still  a  lad. 

At  the  age  of  seven  little  Jean  could  perform 
with  distinction  upon  the  clavecin,  one  of  the 
keyboard  instruments  which  prepared  the  way 
for  our  modern  pianoforte.  At  fourteen,  he 
could  extemporize  a  fugue  on  any  theme  that  was 
proposed  to  him.  Meanwhile  his  classical  studies 
fared    badly.     The    Jesuits    whose    college    he 


Rameau. 

From  a  LUliogJ  apk. 


RAMEAU  167 

attended  could  make  nothing  of  a  pupil  whose 
school-hours  were  spent  in  scrawling  over  his 
books  and  papers  rough  transcripts  of  all  the 
music  he  could  remember.  When  threats,  argu- 
ments, and  punishments  had  alike  failed  to 
break  him  in,  he  was  expelled  from  the  school. 
He  could  not  spell  ;  and,  had  it  not  been  for  his 
hunger  to  devour  every  book  that  had  ever  been 
printed  on  musical  science,  nothing  would  have 
induced  him  to  learn  to  read.  Abandoning  with 
a  sigh  his  darling  hopes  of  a  magistracy,  Jean 
Philippe's  father  bowed  to  the  inevitable  and 
allowed  his  intractable  son  to  embark  upon  a 
musical  career. 

Dijon  has  been  a  considerable  place  for  two 
thousand  years  ;  and  although  it  had  lost  its 
ancient  splendour  as  the  capital  of  independent 
Burgundy  two  hundred  years  before  his  birth, 
in  young  Jean  Philippe's  time  it  was  still  an 
imposing  city,  rich  with  the  riches  earned  by  the 
favoured  Burgundian  vintners.  Within  its  high 
walls  and  broad  earthworks  rose  many  great  and 
wealthy  churches,  each  one  with  its  corps  of 
professional  musicians.  But  although  some  of 
these  organists  and  chapel-masters  were  learned 


1 68  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

men,  it  soon  came  to  pass  that  there  was  nobody 
in  Dijon  who  could  teach  the  amazing  young 
Jean  Philippe  Rameau  anything  more  about 
music. 

Precocity  in  music  on  its  technical  side,  how- 
ever, does  not  necessarily  amount  to  much  in 
the  long  run.  Both  before  and  after  Rameau's 
time  there  have  been  boy-prodigies  who  have 
ended  by  boring  their  hearers  because  their  un- 
natural triumphs  have  somehow  stunted  their 
emotional  growth.  It  was  therefore  a  happy 
moment  for  art  when  Jean  Philippe  suddenly 
fell  beautifully  and  impracticably  in  love.  Into 
his  seventeen-year-old  heart  there  darted  a  glance 
from  an  adorable  young  widow  ;  and  thence- 
forward even  music's  own  charms  were  too 
weak  to  soothe  the  youth's  distracted  breast. 
Indeed,  for  a  time  music  ceased  to  interest  him. 
But  the  energy  withdrawn  from  organ-playing 
and  composition  was  not  allowed  to  evaporate  in 
mere  sighs.  Rameau  was  never  a  milksop  ;  and 
both  by  word  and  by  letter  he  declared  his  love. 
And  then  it  was  that  his  early  indocility  under 
his  Jesuit  schoolmasters  bore  bitter  fruit.  His 
avowals    were    ardent ;    but    the    cruel-hearted 


RAMEAU  169 

widow  pointed  out  that  they  were  also  un- 
grammatical.  His  love-letters  were  passionate  ; 
but  the  lady  pouted  over  the  bad  spelling  and 
the  blots. 

According  to  some  hundreds  of  poets,  it  is 
generally  regrettable  that  the  fair  should  not  be 
kind  ;  but  if  Rameau's  adored  young  beauty  had 
been  more  indulgent  and  less  exacting,  it  would 
have  been  a  misfortune  all  round.  Stung  into 
shame  at  his  own  uncouth  ignorance,  the  lover 
went  to  work  with  a  will  at  the  mending  of  his 
bad  writing,  spelling,  and  speaking.  Without 
these  repairs  to  his  education  it  would  have  been 
impossible  for  Rameau  in  later  life  to  write  the 
long  series  of  theoretical  treatises  which  did  so 
much  for  the  science  and  even  for  the  art  of 
music. 

There  were  limits,  however,  to  the  patience  of 
Rameau  pere.  Sugaring  the  bitter  pill  of  separa- 
tion by  declaring  that  a  stay  in  Italy  would  be 
for  Jean  Philippe's  musical  good,  he  cut  short 
the  wooing  by  packing  his  son  off  to  Milan. 
This  was  in  1701.  But  Milan  could  not  hold 
him  long.  Perhaps  the  Italian  opera  of  the 
moment,  with  its  undramatic  melodiousness,  was 


I70  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

repugnant  to  his  Lullian  sympathies.  Or  it  may 
have  been  that  his  torn  heart  would  not  suffer 
him  to  rest.  Running  against  the  manager  of 
a  travelling  theatrical  company  he  turned  his 
back  on  Italy  and  made  a  tour  of  the  south  of 
France  as  first  violin,  visiting  Marseilles,  Nimes, 
and  Montpellier.  At  Montpellier  (which  is  still 
a  place  of  pilgrimage  for  musicians  on  account 
of  the  unique  musical  MSS.  of  the  Middle  Ages 
preserved  in  the  library  of  the  Faculty  of  Medi- 
cine) he  is  said  to  have  halted  for  purposes  of 
serious  study.  He  also  played  at  Lyons,  not 
so  very  far  from  his  native  town  ;  and,  suc- 
cumbing at  last  to  home-sickness,  returned  to 
Dijon. 

Of  his  interview  with  the  perturbing  young 
widow  nothing  is  known.  Possibly  it  never 
took  place.  But  it  is  certain  that  Rameau's  calf- 
love, like  most  derangements  of  the  kind,  healed 
itself  without  the  desperate  remedy  of  marriage. 
Returning  fervently  to  his  first  love,  the  young 
man  lived  and  worked  heart  and  soul  for  music. 
At  Dijon,  however,  he  could  neither  develop  his 
powers  nor  make  full  use  of  the  musicianship  he 
had  already  acquired.     Paris  beckoned  to  him  ; 


RAMEAU  171 

and  by  1706  he  was  challenging  fate  with  a 
printed  and  published  First  Book  for  the  Clavecin. 
During  his  stay  in  the  capital  he  lodged  with  a 
wig-maker,  as  did  the  unlucky  Haydn  in  Pilsen 
nearly  sixty  years  later.  As  organist  in  the 
Jesuit  convent  in  the  Rue  St.  Jacques,  he  must 
have  enjoyed  some  kind  of  an  income  as  well  as 
sundry  professional  opportunities  ;  but  for  ten 
or  eleven  years  after  the  publication  of  his  book 
Rameau's  life  seems  to  have  been  ineffective,  and 
the  record  is  blank. 

Not  until  1717,  when  he  was  a  man  of  thirty- 
four,  did  Paris  hear  much  of  Jean  Philippe 
Rameau  again.  He  had  blossomed  early  ;  but 
the  fruit  of  his  talent  and  industry  ripened  late. 
In  the  year  just  mentioned  the  covetable  post  of 
organist  at  the  church  of  St.  Jacques  became 
vacant,  and  Rameau  emerged  from  some  un- 
known corner  as  one  of  the  candidates.  At  first 
he  was  warmly  patronized  by  Louis  Marchand, 
the  organist  to  the  King;^  but  as  soon  as  he 
perceived  that  the  young  man  from  Dijon  could 


^  Marchand  was  not  without  talent  as  a  composer  ;  but  he  survives  in 
musical  history  partly  through  his  taking  up  and  dropping  down  of  Rameau, 
and  chiefly  because  of  his  rivalry  with  Bach.     (See  p.  282.) 


172  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

throw  Marchand's  own  performances  into  the 
shade,  the  patron  turned  into  an  enemy  and 
succeeded  in  frustrating  Rameau's  candidature. 
A  greatly  inferior  musician  received  the  appoint- 
ment ;  and  Rameau,  smarting  under  this  in- 
justice, once  more  resumed  his  wanderings 
through  the  French  provinces. 

For  a  time  Rameau  played  the  organ  in  one 
of  the  churches  at  Lille.  But  the  flat  landscapes 
of  the  north  could  not  long  detain  an  impres- 
sionable creature  who  had  been  bred  and  born 
under  the  shadow  of  the  mighty  hill  which  looks 
down  on  romantic  Dijon.  Throwing  up  his  Lille 
appointment  he  set  his  face  towards  the  moun- 
tains, and  at  length  halted  in  the  town  of 
Clermont-Ferrand.  At  Clermont-Ferrand,  in 
the  ancient  Gothic  cathedral  built  of  gloomy 
lava  from  the  extinct  volcanoes  near  the  town, 
Jean  Philippe's  brother  Claude  was  settled  as 
organist.  After  listening  to  Jean  Philippe's 
weary  story  of  disappointments  in  the  past  and 
to  his  plans  of  work  in  the  future,  Claude  very 
handsomely  surrendered  his  post  in  his  brother's 
favour. 

Even  to-day,  in  spite  of  its  commercial  import- 


RAMEAU  173 

ance,  Clermont  preserves  an  old-world  quietness 
in  the  narrow  and  twisting  byways  which  climb 
the  hill  in  odd  contrast  with  its  modern  streets 
and  squares  ;  and  it  is  still  a  city  of  books  and 
learning.  But  when  Rameau  first  looked  upon 
its  walls  and  towers,  Clermont  was  a  little 
mountain-city,  remote  from  the  turmoil  of  the 
world.  Refreshed  by  two  rivers  and  guarded  by 
the  enormous  ramparts  of  the  Puy-de-D6me, 
Clermont  sat  dreaming  of  its  glorious  past.  The 
bishops  of  Clermont  who  ruled  and  taught  in  the 
lava  cathedral  had  succeeded  one  another  for 
nearly  fifteen  hundred  years.  At  Clermont  seven 
ecclesiastical  councils  had  solemnly  assembled. 
The  grand  church  of  Our  Lady,  in  which  Peter 
the  Hermit  preached  the  first  crusade,  was  still 
standing  ;  and  the  citizens  could  point  out  the 
birthplace  of  Gregory  of  Tours.  Yet  Clermont's 
pride  was  not  all  grounded  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Less  than  a  hundred  years  before  Jean  Philippe 
Rameau's  arrival  there,  a  Clermont  mother  had 
given  birth  to  Blaise  Pascal  and  to  his  gifted 
sisters.  Accordingly,  although  the  air  of  the 
town  was  charged  with  ancient  ecclesiastical 
culture,  it  was  also  quick  with  modern  literary 


174  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

activity.  In  short,  if  Rameau  had  a  book  in 
him,  leisurely,  famous  Clermont  was  the  place  to 
draw  it  out. 

The  book  came.  Undaunted  by  the  humiliating 
fact  that,  after  living  exactly  half  his  threescore 
years  and  ten,  he  could  look  back  only  upon 
a  succession  of  failures,  Rameau  took  up  his 
pen.  As  a  lover  and  as  a  composer  he  had 
drawn  blanks,  and  as  a  performer  he  owed  his 
modest  dignities  to  the  magnanimity  of  his 
brother  Claude.  He  resolved,  therefore,  to 
try  and  batter  down  the  wall  of  public  indiffer- 
ence in  a  fresh  place.  Without  abandoning 
composition,  he  plunged  more  deeply  than  ever 
into  the  study  of  harmony  with  the  object  of 
producing  a  treatise  much  more  complete  and 
searching  than  anything  his  predecessors  had 
attempted. 

It  would  require  much  more  space  than  is 
available  in  this  small  volume  to  explain  in 
popular  language  the  contents  of  Rameau's  Traite 
d'Harmonie^  of  his  A'ou-veau  Systhne  de  Musique 
Theorique,  and  of  the  other  works  by  which  he 
won  his  reputation  as  a  theorist.  But  although 
the   letter   of   his    writings    Is    too    technical    for 


The  Concert. 

After  V'anloo. 


RAMEAU  175 

general  readers,  their  spirit  is  more  easily 
described  :  for  the  spirit  of  Rameau  was  simply 
the  spirit  of  his  age. 

The  secular  philosophers  of  eighteenth-century 
France,  flouting  tradition,  custom,  and  authority, 
were  determined  to  establish  all  things  on  a 
rational  basis  of  nature.  By  "nature"  they  meant 
the  solid  world  around  them  and  under  their 
feet.  To  take  a  late  but  familiar  example,  when 
those  Frenchmen  who  had  seized  the  reins  of 
government  after  the  first  success  of  the  Revolu- 
tion began  to  go  mad  in  the  cause  of  "  Reason," 
they  dropped  the  familiar  "  Anno  Domini  "  and 
started  afresh  with  the  "  Year  One  of  the 
Republic."  Again,  they  renamed  the  months 
"  according  to  nature,"  so  that  November  became 
Brumaire,  or  the  foggy  month ;  January,  Nivose, 
or  the  snowy  month  ;  March,  Ventose,  or  the 
windy  month  ;  and  May,  August,  September, 
respectively  Lloreal,  Thermidor,  Fructidor,  the 
months  of  flowers,  of  heat,  of  fruits.  The  year 
began  on  22  September,  because  this  day,  by 
a  remarkable  coincidence,  was  the  date  both 
of  the  autumnal  equinox  and  of  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Republic.     Thus  were  the  combined 


176  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

calendars  which  had  been  bequeathed  by  pagan 
and  by  Christian  Rome  contemptuously  swept 
away. 

A  like  scorn  of  usage  and  authority  was  shown 
in  the  far  more  useful  reform  of  the  weights  and 
measures.  Instead  of  the  yard  with  its  arbitrary 
thirty-six  inches,  the  pound  with  its  awkward 
twelve  or  sixteen  ounces,  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
fearsome  standards  by  which  our  possessions  are 
bought  and  sold.  Great  Britain  was  asked  by 
France  to  join  in  the  search  for  a  new  unit  of 
measure  and  weight  "  based  on  nature."  This 
was  two  years  before  the  foundation  of  the 
Republic  ;  and  unhappily  the  British  Government 
refused  to  move.  Thereupon  the  French  went 
forward  on  their  own  account,  and  ultimately 
fixed  the  new  unit  or  m^tre,  at  a  ten-millionth 
part  of  a  quadrant  of  the  meridian  as  calculated 
by  measuring  from  Barcelona  to  Dunkerque. 
Having  settled  the  m^tre  they  had  no  difficulty 
in  working  out  new  weights  and  measures  of 
capacity.  They  divided  or  multiplied  their  un't 
by  easy  tens  instead  of  by  unmanageable  twelves. 
The  cubic  decimetre  of  water  became  the  new 
unit  of  liquid  measure,  or  litre,  while  a  litre  of 


RAMEAU  177 

distilled  water  at  freezing  point  gave  the  new 
unit  of  weight,  or  kilogramme. 

This  long  account  of  the  metric  system  may 
seem  out  of  place  in  a  small  book  on  music  ;^ 
but  it  would  be  hard  to  find  any  shorter  or  clearer 
way  of  expounding  the  theorist  Rameau.  The 
point  is  that  the  philosophers  of  Rameau's  century 
yearned  to  conform  all  human  institutions  to 
nature,  just  as  noon  has  always  been  fixed  by  the 
natural  fact  of  the  sun's  highest  ascension  in  the 
heavens.  And  it  cannot  be  denied  that  some  of 
their  reforms  were  not  only  rational,  but  possessed 
of  a  certain  grandeur.  Under  the  metric  system 
the  smallest  tradesman  who  sold  a  little  laun- 
dress the  stuff  for  her  wedding-gown  had  the 
globe  itself  for  a  yard-stick  ;  because  he  knew 
that  his  metre  was  a  round  decimal  fraction  of 
the  distance  which  parted  the  frozen  Pole  from 
the  burning  Equator. 

Although  practical  effect  and  legal  sanction 
were  only  vouchsafed  to  these  reforms  in  the 
first  year  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  was  midway 

1  Strange  to  say,  some   current  books  of  reference  give  a  blundering 
account  of  this  simple  matter.     In  one  deservedly  respected  Encyclopedia 
it   is  gravely  stated  that  a  cubic   decimetre  of  water   weighs   a  gramme, 
instead  of  looo  grammes. 
M 


178  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

in  the  eighteenth  that  the  claims  of  "nature" 
were  most  ardently  pleaded  by  Diderot,  D'Alem- 
bert  and  the  other  Encyclopaedists.  But  perhaps 
one  may  make  bold  to  suggest  that  too  much 
credit  has  been  given  to  these  interesting  writers, 
whose  abusiveness  and  self-ostentation  ought  to 
have  raised  more  suspicion  with  regard  to  their 
originality  as  thinkers  and  their  equipment  as 
scholars.  To  claim  on  behalf  of  Rameau  that  he 
was  the  pioneer  of  culture  "according  to  nature  " 
would  be  too  much  ;  and  yet  the  fact  remains 
that,  nearly  thirty  years  before  the  Encyclopaedists 
initiated  their  celebrated  work,  Rameau  had  pub- 
lished a  treatise  on  harmony  "  reduced  to  its 
natural  principles."  When  it  is  remembered  that 
the  Encyclopaedists  fiercely  attacked  Rameau  both 
as  a  musical  scholar  and  as  a  private  citizen,  it  is 
worth  while  pointing  out  that  they  had  grounds 
for  jealousy  against  the  man  who,  in  a  dull  little 
episcopal  city  amid  the  wild  mountains  of  Au- 
vergne,  had  written  a  book  anticipating  their 
fundamental  principle. 

Rameau's  book  was  published  in  Paris,  whither 
he  repaired  in  person  to  force  his  work  upon  the 
world.     He    left    Clermont-Ferrand    amid    the 


RAMEAU  179 

lamentations  of  the  citizens  ;  for  Rameau  was  a 
brilliant  executant  as  well  as  a  learned  theorist, 
and  his  improvisations  upon  the  cathedral  organ 
had  become  far-famed.  But  Clermont  was  too 
narrow  for  his  ambitious  activity.  He  reached 
the  capital  in  172 1,  and  his  treatise  appeared 
during  the  following  year.  Before  five  years  had 
passed  he  had  been  lifted  into  celebrity  on  con- 
flicting tides  of  praise  and  blame.  The  French 
in  which  his  treatises  were  written  was  untidy 
and  unclear,  and  his  reasonings  abounded  in 
errors  and  inconsistencies.  But,  as  Rameau  was 
a  big  enough  man  to  admit  mistakes  and  even  to 
alter  his  mind  as  he  advanced  in  knowledge,  he 
could  not  be  crushed  by  the  defter  but  smaller- 
m.inded  writers  who  at  first  resented  his  in- 
trusion. 

It  is  the  glory  of  Rameau  that  he  laid  bare  the 
natural  foundations  of  harmony.  In  the  first 
chapter  of  this  book  it  was  pointed  out  that 
Pythagoras  based  musical  science  on  a  doctrine 
of  numbers.  His  successors  accepted  his  con- 
clusions, errors  and  all  ;  but  they  gradually  freed 
themselves  from  the  tyranny  of  his  mistakes  by 
the  workaday  principle  that  what  sounded  right 


i8o  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

could  not  be  very  far  wrong.  In  this  rough-and- 
ready  principle,  however,  dangers  lay  lurking. 
If  every  man  chose  to  do  what  was  right  in  his 
own  ears  and  to  devise  cacophonous  combinations, 
what  conclusive  argument  could  be  used  against 
him  ? 

Modern  harmony  is  evolved  from  the  triad, 
or  common  chord,  consisting  of  the  keynote, 
the  third,  and  the  fifth.  Rameau  showed  that 
this  triad  is  not  arbitrary,  but  natural.  It  is  not 
one  combination,  out  of  many  others  equally 
reasonable,  which  we  accept  merely  because  our 
ears  have  grown  accustomed  to  it ;  and  that 
Rameau  was  right  may  be  shown  in  a  very  simple 
way.  Let  the  reader  sit  down  at  a  pianoforte 
and,  with  his  foot  on  the  loud  pedal,  let  him 
strike  any  low  note.  If,  for  example,  he  strike 
C,  he  will  hear  not  only  C,  but  also  its  third, 
fifth,  and  octave  sounding  sympathetically  with 
it.^  Rameau  himself  made  this  experiment,  not 
on  a  pianoforte,  but  by  means  of  the  mono- 
chord  ;  and  both  physics  and  mathematics  since 
Rameau's    day    have    confirmed    his     findings. 

1  In  the  key  of  C  major,  of  course  the  keynote,  third,  and  fifth,  the  three 
components  of  the  common  chord,  are  C,  E,  and  G. 


RAMEAU  i8i 

Whether  one  measures  the  extent  of  the  sound- 
waves in  space  or  the  duration  of  the  vibrations 
in  time,  one  finds  proof  of  the  truth  unveiled  by 
Rameau  and  only  just  missed  by  Pythagoras, 
namely,  that  the  common  chord  corresponds  with 
the  simplest  numerical  ratios,  and  that  it  rests  on 
solid  nature.^  The  practical  effect  of  Rameau's 
discovery  was  to  put  solid  rock  under  the  feet 
of  composers.  The  old  polyphonic  music,  with 
its  intertwining  of  parts,  had  been  fast  passing 
away,  leaving  musicians  to  replace  it  by  har- 
monic music.  But  while  the  old  music  had  its 
reasonable  rules  and  precedents,  the  new,  until 
Rameau's  time,  moved  onward  like  a  ship  with- 
out a  compass,  and  was  pushed  along  its  proper 
course  by  the  current  of  artistic  taste  alone. 

The  well-worn  proverb  which  declares  that 
a  pound  of  practice  is  worth  a  ton  ot  precept 
is  often  wildly  untrue  where  musical  theorists 
are  concerned.  As  a  rule,  the  ablest  musical 
preceptors  practise  so  lamely  and  tamely  that 
their    compositions  weary   the   hearer  well-nigh 

'  In  one  sense  it  would  be  extravagant  to  say  that  the  most  modern 
harmony  is  directly  grounded  in  its  entirety  upon  nature.  Yet  its  most 
curious  refinements  are  referable  to  the  common  chord  on  the  last 
analysis. 


i82  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

to  death.  But  Rameau's  was  an  exceptional 
case.  His  works  were  worth  hearing.  While 
he  was  at  Clermont  building  up  his  Traite 
d'Harmonie,  he  penned  a  good  deal  of  interesting 
music  for  the  clavecin  and  the  organ.  And 
during  the  years  which  elapsed  between  the 
first  appearance  of  the  Traiti  and  the  publication 
of  the  JSouveau  Systeme^  he  was  busy  as  a  creative 
musician  of  a  decidedly  unprofessional  kind. 

The  plate  facing  this  page  (reproduced  from 
a  print  of  the  time)  gives  a  fanciful  representa- 
tion of  the  origin  of  the  Opera  Comique  in 
Paris.  The  Opera  Comique  is  nowadays  subsi- 
dized by  the  State,  and  handsomely  housed  in 
a  great  new  theatre  where  operas  so  little  comique 
as  the  passion-fraught  Carmen  are  performed  with 
all  the  intensity  of  lyrical  tragedy.  But  the 
Opera  Comique  began  among  clowns,  tumblers, 
gingerbread-stalls,  dancing  bears,  and  obese 
ladies  at  Piron's^  "Theatre  of  the  Fair."  For 
this  barn  or  booth  Rameau  wrote  UEndriague^ 
which  was  first  played  on  a  February  day  in 
1723. 

Meanwhile   lesser  composers  were  being  ad- 

^  Piron,  like  Rameau,  came  to  Paris  from  Dijon. 


The  Origin  of  thk  Oi'eka  Comiqce. 

After  B.  Picart. 


RAMEAU  183 

mitted  to  the  Academie  Royale,  and  their  un- 
talented  operas  were  being  seriously  performed 
on  the  grand  scale  in  alternation  with  the 
revered  masterpieces  of  Lully.  That  he  should 
be  persistently  set  aside  galled  Rameau,  con- 
scious as  he  was  of  his  superiority  to  all  the 
other  French  musicians  of  his  day.  Besides, 
there  was  another  reason  for  pushfulness  on  his 
part.  In  1726,  at  the  age  of  forty-three,  Rameau 
had  wedded  Marie  Louise  Mangot,  a  sweet- 
voiced  damsel  of  eighteen  summers. 

Determined  to  break  into  the  magic  circle  of 
grand  opera,  Rameau,  a  year  after  his  marriage, 
began  coaxing  the  dramatic  poets  for  libretti. 
To  the  blind  Houdar  de  Lamotte  he  wrote  a 
remarkable  appeal,  in  which  he  affirmed  that  he 
had  learned  "  the  art  of  concealing  art "  in  his 
music.  But  Houdar  de  Lamotte  was  blind  in 
more  senses  than  one,  and  he  refused  to 
honour  himself  by  writing  Rameau's  first  grand 
libretto. 

The  way  seemed  to  be  opening  when  Rameau 
at  last  found  a  patron.  La  Popeliniere,  the 
Farmer-General,  not  only  made  the  author  of  the 
Traite  his  clavecinist,  but  gave  him  the  free  run 


1 84  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

of  his  private  orchestra,  his  private  theatre,  and 
his  private  chapel,  the  organ  and  the  choir  in- 
cluded. Better  still,  La  Popeliniere  obtained  a 
libretto  from  Voltaire.  It  was  a  lyrical  tragedy 
called  Samson,  ^nd  Rameau  lost  no  time  in  setting 
it  to  music.  But,  on  the  eve  of  its  public  per- 
formance, the  Academie  Royale  meanly  ^  stepped 
in  and  forbade  the  production  on  the  ground 
that  the  theme  was  Biblical. 

Six  years  passed.  Rameau  found  himself  on 
the  verge  of  fifty  without  having  brought  a 
single  grand  opera  to  performance.  But  at  last 
the  Abbe  Pellegrin  took  pity  on  him,  and  fur- 
nished him  with  a  libretto  called  Hippolyte  et 
Jricie,  based  on  the  Phedre  of  Racine.  The  Abbe 
Pellegrin,  however,  did  not  believe  in  doing 
anything  for  nothing.  A  witty  couplet  said  of 
him  that  he  dined  off  the  altar  and  supped  off 
the  theatre.  Accordingly  the  prudent  abbe, 
having  the  Samson  fiasco  before  his  eyes,  would 
not  part  with  his  poem  until  Rameau  had  given 
him   a    bill    for   500    livres    as    security   against 


1  '■  Meanly,"  because  an  opera  called  Jephthah,  by  one  of  the  Acad^mie's 
friends,  was  shortly  afterwards  accepted.  Of  course,  the  rule  against  Biblical 
dramas  still  holds  good  in  England. 


RAMEAU  185 

Hippolyles  failure.  But  even  the  Abbe  Pellegrin 
cared  for  art,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  heard 
Rameau's  music  to  the  first  act,  he  tore  the  bill 
to  pieces  before  the  amazed  composer's  eyes. 

All  Paris,  however,  did  not  agree  with  the 
abbe.  Rameau  had  committed  the  presumptuous 
crime  of  improving  upon  Lully,  and  although 
Lully  had  been  dead  for  nearly  half  a  century, 
there  were  still  dilettanti  who  believed  that  Lully 
had  spoken  the  last  word  concerning  lyrical 
tragedy.  Indeed,  if  Rousseau  is  to  be  believed, 
the  fight  against  Rameau  was  carried  to  such 
lengths  that  some  wretched  creatures  in  the 
orchestra  deliberately  played  wrong  notes  so  as 
to  make  the  music  sound  clumsy  and  ugly.  But 
a  pro-Rameau  faction  soon  arose.  The  aged 
Campra,  whose  operas  were  among  the  best  of 
those  produced  in  France  between  Lully's  day 
and  Rameau's,  magnanimously  said  that  Rameau 
would  outshine  all  his  contemporaries,  and  that 
there  were  enough  fine  things  in  Hippolyte  et  Aricie 
for  ten  ordinary  operas. 

Step  by  step  Rameau  came  into  his  own.  Two 
years  after  Hippolyte^  a  ballet  called  Lei  bides 
Galantes  gave  further  proof  of  his  powers,  and, 


i86  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

after  two  years  more,  Castor  et  Pollux  (1737) 
closed  the  mouths  of  most  of  his  enemies.  For 
twenty-five  years  he  steadily  reaped  the  harvest 
of  success  which  had  been  so  long  in  ripening. 
In  addition  to  a  Second  Book  for  the  Clavecin^ 
which  appeared  exactly  thirty-five  years  after  the 
already  mentioned  First  Book  of  1706,  he  wrote 
enough  operas  to  make  up  for  his  late  entrance 
into  the  dramatic  field.  His  lyrical  works  in- 
cluded Pygmalion,  Za'is,  Na'is,  and  Dardanus.  As 
the  Academic  did  not  relent  towards  Samson,  the 
composer  worked  up  a  great  part  of  Samson  s 
music  under  the  name  of  Zoroastre. 

Less  pleasing  than  LuUy  in  the  single  point  of 
dramatic  melody,  Rameau  outran  his  great  pre- 
decessor in  all  other  musical  respects.  His 
harmony  was  grander  than  Lully's  beyond  all 
comparison,  and  his  part-writing  for  human 
voices  was  far  richer  and  more  free.  The  ac- 
companiments to  his  recitatives  were  full  of  right 
feeling  for  the  characters  of  the  various  instru- 
ments which  he  so  ingeniously  combined. 

Yet,  with  all  this  musical  worth,  the  operas  ot 
Rameau  lived  shorter  lives  than  Lully's.  Their 
musical  vitality  was  abundant,  but  it  could  not 


RAMEAU  187 

long  sustain  the  suffocating  dead-weight  of  the 
libretti.  Like  Schumann's  single  opera,  the 
beautiful  but  unlucky  Genoveva,  and  like  tifty 
other  operas  before  and  since,  Rameau's  works 
for  the  stage  consisted  of  good  music  wedded  to 
dry  or  foolish,  or,  at  the  very  best,  unsuitable 
texts.  And  for  this  disablement  Rameau  was 
himself  largely  to  blame.  Although  the  splendid 
fruit  of  Lully's  enlightened  partnership  with 
Quinault  still  hung  before  his  eyes,  he  used  to 
maintain  that  the  libretto  was  of  small  import- 
ance. He  even  went  so  far  as  to  boast  that 
he  could  set  the  "  Gazette  de  Hollande "  to 
music. 

Of  all  art's  many  might-have-beens  Rameau's 
case  is  one  of  the  most  tantalizing.  While  he 
was  badgering  the  wrong  people  for  libretti  his 
fellow-townsman  and  contemporary,  the  poet 
Crebillon,  was  often  aimlessly  employed. 
Whether  Rameau  and  Crebillon  were  acquainted 
one  with  another  in  their  boyhood's  days  at 
Dijon  is  not  known  ;  but  it  is  a  great  misfortune 
that  the  two  men  did  not  join  their  artistic 
forces.  Crebillon  is  little  read  nowadays  ;  but 
a    perusal     of    his    Rhadamiste    et    Zenobie    will 


i88  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

show  how  grand  an  occasion  he  could  have  pro- 
vided for  Rameau's  largest  harmonies. 

That  Rameau  should  have  lost  his  way  among 
the  librettists  is  the  more  puzzling  when  one 
remembers  that,  by  dint  of  practice,  he  became 
himself  a  man  of  letters.  Indeed,  he  attained 
such  proficiency  as  an  author  that  he  was  not 
afraid  to  break  a  lance  with  toes  no  less  formid- 
able than  the  Encyclopaedists.  The  Encyclo- 
paedists, unlike  Socrates,  were  not  wise  enough 
to  know  that  in  some  matters  (including  music) 
they  were  fools,  and  accordingly  they  marred 
their  work  by  many  blunders  which  specialists 
could  have  corrected.  Rameau,  in  spite  of  his 
seventy  years,  came  forward  boldly  with  a  pam- 
phlet entitled  :  Erreurs  sur  la  Musique  dans 
rEncy  dope  die}  D'Alembert,  the  editor  of  the 
Encyclopedia^  replied  rebuking  the  outsider  in 
a  pontifical  manner.  But  Rameau  returned  to 
the  fight  and  indisputably  had  the  best  of  it. 

It  was  no  new  experience  for  Rameau  to  be  in 

^  The  articles  on  music  in  the  Encyclopadia  were  mainly  the  work  of 
Rousseau.  In  the  year  of  Rameau's  death,  Rousseau  revised  his  articles 
and  collected  them  into  his  Dkt'ionnaire  de  la  Musique  (1774).  The  print 
facing  this  page  is  a  reproduction  of  the  charming  frontispiece  to  the 
Dictionnaire. 


Frontispiece  of  Rousseau's  •' Diciiu-nnaike  l-e  .Mu^k^'UE." 

After  C.  S.  Cochin,  fiU. 


RAMEAU  189 

the  hot  midst  of  battle.  While  his  quarrel  with 
the  Encyclopaedists  was  brewing,  and  long  before 
the  straitest  sect  of  the  Lullians  had  ceased  to 
denounce  his  impious  novelties,  he  became  one 
of  the  protagonists  in  the  fierce  musical  struggle 
known  to  our  great-great-grandfathers  under  the 
name  of  the  "Guerre  des  BoufFons." 

The  "  Guerre  des  BoufFons  "  arose  out  of  the 
visit  to  Paris  of  an  Italian  opera-company  in 
1752.  This  company  had  a  strong  card  to  play 
in  the  shape  of  Pergolesi's  ^  Serva  Padrona  which 
was  the  talk  of  all  Europe.  La  Serva  Padrona 
was  not  an  opera  seria  but  an  opera  buffa  ;  whence 
the  phrase  "  Guerre  des  BoufFons."  Or,  to  be 
precise,  it  was  a  "comic  intermezzo,"  Accord- 
ing to  De  Brosses,  who  made  a  round  of  the 
Italian  opera-houses  in  1740,  it  was  the  Italian 
custom  to  sandwich  a  comic  intermezzo  between 
the  acts  of  a  grand  lyrical  tragedy.  But  al- 
though comic  intermezzi  played  the  humble  role 
of  the   stage   Irishman   who   supplies   the   comic 

^  Giovanni  Battista  Pergolesi  had  been  dead  fifteen  years  when  La 
Serva  Padrona  was  first  performed  in  Paris.  Dying  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
seven,  he  left  behind  him  enough  music  (notably  a  Stahat  Mater)  to  show 
that,  had  he  lived,  he  would  have  won  a  place  only  second  to  Palestrina's 
in  the  list  of  Italian  composers. 


19°  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

relief  in  a  magniloquent  melodrama,  Pergolesi 
filled  La  Serva  Padrona  with  so  much  vital  beauty 
and  abounding  humour  that  the  little  piece  shook 
French  opera  to  its  foundations. 

In  revisiting  the  many  battlefields  on  which 
fashionable  men  and  women,  splitting  into  two 
hostile  armies,  have  professed  to  fight  for  and 
against  a  Rameau  or  a  Pergolesi,  a  Gluck  or  a 
Piccini,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  fashionable 
society  necessarily  cared  a  rap  for  conflicting 
ideals  in  music.  Rival  composers,  to  use  a 
famous  mixed  metaphor,  were  often  made  stalk- 
ing-horses by  courtiers  with  a  fish  to  fry  on 
their  own  account.  And  it  was  so  in  the  "Guerre 
des  Bouffons."  As  Madame  de  Pompadour  was 
a  patroness  of  French  music,  the  Queen  was 
glad  of  a  chance  to  annoy  her  by  supporting  the 
Italians,  Hence  the  pamphlets  which  were  flung 
about  the  opera-house  from  both  sides  were  not 
disinterested  arguments  on  the  simple  merits  of 
an  aesthetical  dispute.  But  Rousseau's  interven- 
tion was  more  serious.  He  went  so  far  as  to 
declare  that  "  to  learn  how  to  compose  one  must 
go  to  Naples."  After  giving  his  reasons,  he 
added  :  "  The  French  airs  are  not  airs  at  all,  the 


RAMEAU  191 

French  recitative  is  not  recitative.  Hence  I 
conclude  that  the  French  have  not,  and  cannot 
have,  a  music  of  their  own  ;  or,  if  ever  they 
have  one,  it  will  be  so  much  the  worse  for 
them."i 

To  Rameau  the  war  brought  luck.  In  face  of 
the  foreign  invader  the  champions  of  native 
opera  closed  up  their  ranks  and  the  Lullians 
accepted  Rameau  at  last.  But  Rameau  himself 
was  too  great  a  man  to  confine  his  musical  sym- 
pathies within  frontiers.  Despite  his  load  of 
years  he  kept  a  free  mind  ;  and  there  are  few 
among  the  many  confessions  of  artists  more 
striking  than  Rameau's  words  to  the  Abbe 
Arnaud  :  "  If  I  were  twenty  years  younger,"  he 
said,  "  I  would  go  to  Italy  and  take  Pergolesi 
for  my  model  ;  abandon  something  of  my  har- 
mony ;  and  devote  myself  to  attaining  truth  of 
declamation,  which  should  be  the  sole  guide 
of  musicians.  But,  after  sixty,  one  cannot 
change." 

1  ".  .  .  que  les  airs  Franjais  ne  sont  point  des  airs,  que  le  recitatif 
Franjais  ne  sont  point  du  recitatif.  D'ou  je  conclus  que  les  Francais  n'ont 
point  de  Musique,  et  n'en  peuvent  avoir  ;  ou  que  si  jamais  ils  en  ont  une, 
ce  sera  tant  pis  pour  eux"  (End  of  Rousseau's  Lettre  sur  la  Musique 
Fran(aise). 


192  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Throughout  his  closing  years  honours  were 
heaped  on  the  old  man's  head.  His  patent  of 
nobility  was  enregistered.  But  he  had  reached 
the  age  at  which  such  things  are  of  small  account. 
He  died,  a  man  of  fourscore,  on  1 2  September, 
1764. 

In  contrast  with  Lully's,  the  personality  of 
Rameau  makes  a  pleasing  impression  on  the 
student  of  his  career.  The  belief  of  some 
writers  that  he  was  mean  and  heartless  is  mainly 
chargeable  to  the  account  of  the  Encyclopaedists, 
who  industriously  defamed  the  memory  of  the 
man  whose  arguments  they  could  not  answer. 
After  the  fashion  of  John  Milton,  who  answered 
the  strictures  of  Salmasius  on  the  English 
regicides  by  twitting  Salmasius  with  his  shrewish 
wife,  Diderot  tried  to  dispose  of  D'Alembert's 
victorious  antagonist  by  contemptible  scurrility. 
In  his  mean  and  clever  book,  Le  Neveu  de  Rameau 
(which  Goethe  translated  into  German  long  before 
a  French  edition  appeared),  Diderot  said  that 
Rameau  "only  thought  of  himself,"  and  that 
"  his  wife  and  daughter  might  die  any  time  they 
pleased  ;  for,  so  long  as  the  passing  bells  of  the 
parish-church  which  tolled  for  them  duly  sounded 


RAMEAU  193 

the  twelfth  and  the  seventeenth/  all  would  be 
well."  As  for  the  charge  of  selfishness,  it  is 
known  that  Rameau  maintained  an  invalid  sister 
for  many  years,  and  that  he  repeatedly  helped  an 
old  organist,  BalMtre.  The  suggestion  of  un- 
husbandly  and  unfatherly  indifference  rests  on 
no  evidence  outside  Diderot's  cunningly  worded 
innuendo. 

Purely  as  a  musician,  Rameau  was  more  richly 
endowed  than  LuUy  and  Gluck  put  together. 
And  although  he  is  directly  represented  by  only 
a  few  harpsichord  pieces  in  the  repertory  of  to- 
day,^ it  must  always  be  remembered  that  his  work 
as  a  harmonist  survives  in  the  warp  and  woof  of 
nearly  all  our  modern  music. 

^  An  allusion  to  Rameau's  acoustical  discovery  described  on  page  180. 
When  the  sounds  of  the  common  chord  are  heard  in  sympathy  with  a 
ground-tone  they  do  not  resound  compactly,  but  in  a  formation  extended 
through  three  octaves.  The  fifth  is  heard  in  the  second  octave,  and  the 
third  in  the  third  octave.  Rameau  therefore  called  these  tones  the  twelfth 
and  the  seventeenth, 

2  In  spite  of  its  inexplicable  omission  of  the  most  taking  piece,  Le 
Tambourin,  Messrs.  Augener's  cheap  album  (No.  8345  in  their  edition) 
will  give  a  fair  idea  of  Rameau's  slighter  efforts. 


PURCELL 

ALTHOUGH  the  composer  of  DUo  and ^neas 
was  less  than  thirty-five  years  old  when  the 
composer  of  The  Messiah  was  writing  his  first 
sonatas  and  cantatas,  many  people  believe  that  the 
Englishman  preceded  the  German  by  a  stretch 
of  time  so  long  that  while  Handel  belongs  to 
the  dawn  of  our  own  day,  Purcell  is  mainly  an 
olden-time  curiosity  for  mere  antiquaries  to  pore 
over.  The  truth  is,  that  Purcell's  birth  was  as 
near  in  time  to  Handel's  and  Bach's  as  was 
Wagner's  to  Tschaikowski's.  Purcell,  in  short, 
belongs  to  modern  music. 

Probably  his  homely  English  name  has  helped 
to  keep  Purcell  out  of  his  rights.  There  is  a 
widespread  notion  that  a  composer  of  music  is 
different  from  creatures  of  everyday  flesh-and- 
blood  ;  and  accordingly  many  Englishmen  find 
it  difficult  to  believe  that  a  little  boy  named 
Harry  Purcell,  who  ran  about  in  Old  Pye  Street, 

194 


PURCELL  195 

Westminster,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago, 
really  and  truly  grew  up  to  be  one  of  the 
greatest  composers  not  only  of  England,  but  of 
the  world.  Yet  in  Italy,  in  France,  and  in 
Germany,  where  musicians'  names  have  sounds 
as  homely  in  their  respective  languages  as  the 
name  of  Purcell  has  in  English,  people  find  no 
difficulty  in  taking  the  native  composers  seriously. 
To  an  Italian,  Monteverde  is  Greenhill,  Verdi 
is  Mr.  Green,  Rossini  is  Mr.  Redman,  and 
Stradella,  the  romantic  hero  of  elopements  and 
fights,  was  named  Street.  To  the  Frenchman, 
Rameau  is  Mr.  Branch.  To  the  Germans,  Bach 
is  Brook  or  Beck,  Weber  is  Weaver,  and  the 
creator  of  the  heavenly  Grail-music  is,  alas  ! 
Mr,   Richard   Cartwright  ! 

The  time  has  surely  come  for  revising  the 
almost  forgotten  truth  that  a  man  may  be  both 
a  first-rank  composer  and  a  thoroughbred  Eng- 
lishman. Christopher  Wren,  John  Keats,  and 
John  William  Turner  had  names  as  home-made 
as  Henry  Purcell's  :  yet  we  accept  them  as  an 
architect,  a  poet,  and  a  painter  equal  to  any  of 
their  rivals  throughout  the  world.  Purcell,  like 
Milton  and  Wren  and  Dryden,   his  contempo- 


196  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

raries,  ought  to  form  part  of  our  national  boast- 
ing. And  along  with  Purcell  in  our  places  of 
pride  should  stand  the  grand  English  poly- 
phonists,  especially  Tallis  and  Byrd,  who  la- 
boured in  music  while  Shakespeare  and  Spenser 
were  labouring  in  poetry  and  with  hardly  less 
noble  harvests. 

Henry  Purcell  was  born  in  the  bad  old  times 
of  the  Commonwealth,  when  church-music  had 
been  well-nigh  silenced  throughout  the  whole  of 
Great  Britain.  Not  only  the  printed  and  manu- 
script copies  of  music  which  had  survived  the 
operations  of  Henry  VIII  and  Edward  VI,  but 
also  innumerable  works  of  the  Elizabethan 
polyphonists,  had  been  scattered  to  the  winds 
or  delivered  to  the  flames.  At  Canterbury  the 
soldiers,  after  desecrating  the  tombs  and  smash- 
ing the  brazen  eagle  of  the  lectern,  proceeded 
to  destroy  the  organ  and  to  mangle  all  the 
service-books,  "  bestrewing  the  whole  pavement 
with  the  leaves  thereof."  At  Winchester  a  mixed 
host  of  Roundhead  horse  and  foot  marched  into 
the  cathedral  with  flags  flying,  drums  beating, 
and  matches  burning  ;  and,  having  seized  "  all 
the  singing-books  belonging  to  the  Quire,"  they 


Henry  Purcell. 

From  an  Old  Engraving. 


PURCELL  197 

bore  them  in  derision  to  an  ale-house  and  there 
burnt  them  on  a  bonfire  fed  with  communion- 
tables and  altar-rails.  At  Chichester  "  they  rent 
the  books  in  pieces  and  scattered  the  torn  leaves 
all  over  the  church,  even  to  the  covering  of  the 
pavement."  At  Rochester  the  Puritan  colonel, 
when  he  caught  sight  of  the  organ,  cried  cut, 
"  A  devil  on  those  bag-pipes  !  "  and  one  of  his 
men  fired  a  pistol  at  the  head  of  a  prebendary 
who  tried  to  prevent  the  sacking  of  the  cathedral. 
As  for  Westminster  Abbey  : 

Soldiers  were  quartered  who  brake  down  the  rail 
about  the  altar  and  burnt  it  in  the  place  where  it 
stood ;  they  brake  down  the  organ  and  pawned  the 
pipes  at  several  ale-houses  for  pots  of  ale ;  they  put 
on  some  of  the  singing-men's  surplesses  and,  in 
contempt  of  that  canonical  habit,  ran  up  and  down 
the  church  j  he  that  wore  the  surpless  was  the  hare, 
the  rest  were  the  hounds.^ 

It  was  in  1643  ^^^^  these  fine-minded  cham- 
pions of  spirituality  in  worship  pawned  the  pipes 
and  swallowed  the  ale  of  Westminster  :  and 
fifteen  years  later,  close  to  the  scene  of  their 
orgy,    Henry   Purcell    came   into   the  world  to 

^  Quoted  from  Mercurius  Rusticus  in  Purcell,  by  W.  H.  Cummings. 


198  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

make  the  Abbey's  outraged  vaults  resound 
more  proudly  than  ever  with  service  high  and 
anthems  clear.  The  precise  day  of  1658  on 
which  he  was  born  is  not  known  ;  but  the  spot 
where  the  birth  took  place  can  still  be  traced. 
The  house  was  in  St.  Ann's  Lane,  Old  Pye 
Street.  Perhaps  it  is  worth  noting  that  Purcell 
was  born  not  far  from  where  Chaucer  died. 

The  year  of  Henry  Purcell's  birth  was  also 
the  year  of  Oliver  Cromwell's  death  ;  and  as 
soon  as  the  man  of  blood  and  iron  was  gone  the 
Commonwealth  began  to  break  up.  Of  the 
two  tyrannies  under  which  they  had  lived,  the 
majority  of  Englishmen  came  to  prefer  even 
Stuart  absolutism  to  the  less  picturesque  and 
more  inquisitorial  dictatorship  of  the  masterful 
Roundhead.  Before  Purcell  could  walk  and 
talk,  General  Monk  marched  into  London  with 
his  six  thousand  men. 

Not  until  the  end  of  the  third  month  after 
"  Old  George  "  led  his  troops  into  the  city  did 
the  Restoration  become  an  accomplished  fact 
with  the  landing  of  Charles  II  at  Dover.  But 
everybody  knew  what  "  Old  George  "  was  going 
to  do,  and  Pepys,  under  the  date  21  February, 


PURCELL  199 

1659,^  has  left  a  pleasant  account  of  "the  city 
from  one  end  to  the  other  with  a  glory  about  it, 
so  high  was  the  light  of  the  bonfires."  Pepys 
saw  this  cheery  sight  from  "  a  room  next  the 
water"  in  a  coffee-house;  and  while  the  fires 
blazed  and  the  bells  rang  outside,  he  and  his 
friends  "had  variety  of  brave  Italian  and 
Spanish  songs,  and  a  canon  for  eight  voices 
which  Mr.  Lock  had  lately  made  on  these  words, 
Domine,  salvum  fac  Regem — an  admirable  thing." 
As  Domine  salvum  fac  Rege?n  nostrum  is  the  old 
God  save  the  King,  it  is  evident  that  Mr.  Lock 
had  promptly  seen  which  way  the  wind  was 
blowing. 

Along  with  Mr.  Lock  in  Mr.  Pepys'  vocifer- 
ous company  was  Mr.  Lock's  friend,  a  brother 
"  master  of  musique,"  whose  name  stands  in  the 
diary  as  "  Pursell."  This  was  Henry  Purcell 
senior,  the  great  musician's  father.  As  soon  as 
Charles  II  had  fairly  begun  to  reconstitute  royal 
institutions  in  England,  Purcell  senior  was 
amply  remembered.  He  became  a  gentleman  of 
the  Chapel  Royal,  and,  according  to  the  Chapel 

1  Old  style.  With  Pepys,  of  course,  the  year  1660  began  on  the 
25th  March  following. 


200  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

cheque-book  which  has  been  preserved,  he  re- 
ceived four  yards  of  fine  scarlet  cloth  for  a  gown 
to  wear  at  the  King's  coronation.  He  was  also 
made  a  member  of  the  King's  band,  a  "  singing- 
man  "  of  Westminster  Abbey,  and  master  of  the 
Abbey  choirboys. 

By  this  time  the  reader  of  these  pages  will 
have  learned  that  the  office  of  "  master  of  the 
children  "  was  one  of  honour  and  importance. 
Orlandus  Lassus  and  Palestrina  had  not  regarded 
it  as  beneath  their  dignity.  But  in  the  early 
years  of  the  Restoration  the  duties  of  the  master 
of  the  children  at  Westminster  Abbey  were  ex- 
ceptionally onerous.  The  master's  first  difficulty 
was  to  find  the  children.  In  the  established 
choirs  of  cathedral  and  collegiate  churches  new 
boys  are  received  only  one  or  two  at  a  time  as 
the  voices  of  their  elders  break  ;  and  all  except 
the  most  idle  and  stupid  of  them  are  soon 
absorbed  into  their  particular  choir's  tradition 
and  routine.  Under  the  Puritans,  however,  the 
historic  "chapels"  had  been  disbanded,  and  the 
recruiting  of  boy-choristers  had  entirely  ceased. 
The  result  was  that  choirmasters  under  Charles 
II    had    often    to  content  themselves   with    the 


PURCELL  20I 

tenor  and  bass  men  who  had  been  soprano  and 
alto  boys  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War. 
As  boys  were  not  available,  the  composers  either 
wrote  anthems  for  men's  voices  only  or  directed 
the  upper  parts  to  be  played  by  the  cornets. 

With  boys  at  a  premium  it  may  fairly  be  con- 
jectured that  the  master  of  the  Westminster 
children  did  not  postpone  the  musical  education 
of  his  little  son.  But  he  was  not  suffered  to 
make  more  than  a  beginning.  In  the  midst  of  his 
prosperity — for  he  had  also  received  the  impor- 
tant appointment  of  music-copyist  at  the  Abbey 
— he  was  cut  off.  He  died  on  i6  August,  1664; 
and,  as  sepulture  in  Westminster  Abbey  had  not 
yet  come  to  be  a  jealously  guarded  honour,  he 
was  laid  to  rest  in  the  cloisters. 

Like  the  family  of  Bach,  the  family  of  Purcell 
was  pervasively  musical.  Thomas  Purcell,  little 
Henry's  uncle,  upon  whom  the  guardianship  of 
the  orphan  devolved,  had  worn  his  four  yards 
of  scarlet  cloth  and  sung  at  the  coronation  by 
his  brother  Henry's  side.  Many  old  account- 
books  and  warrants  are  extant  containing  entries 
relating  to  his  appointments  and  emoluments. 
He  was    named    by   the   King  "  a   musitian    in 


202  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

ordinary  for  the  lute  and  voyce,"  "  a  composer 
in  ordinary  for  the  violins,"  master  of  the  King's 
four-and-twenty  fiddlers  (a  band  formed  in  emula- 
tion of  the  "  Violons  du  Roi  "  of  Louis  XIV, 
already  referred  to  in  the  chapter  on  LuUy),  and 
a  "  Marshall  of  the  Corporation  of  Musique  in 
Westminster."  The  total  moneys  payable  to 
him  on  various  accounts  made  up  a  respectable 
sum  ;  but  the  Merry  Monarch  was  so  fitful  a 
paymaster  that  Pepys,  only  six  years  after  Charles 
came  to  the  throne,  wrote  it  down  that  "  many 
of  the  musique  are  ready  to  starve,  they  being 
five  years  behindhand  with  their  wages." 

The  boy  Henry  was  received  into  the  Chapel 
Royal  as  a  chorister  immediately  after  his  father's 
death.  At  the  Chapel  Royal  the  master  of  the 
children  was  Captain  Cooke.  Before  the  Civil 
Wars  Cooke  had  been  a  gentleman  of  the  Chapel ; 
but  when  the  fighting  began  he  took  the  field  for 
the  King  and  became  a  captain.  It  was  not, 
however,  solely  in  acknowledgment  of  his  loyal 
prowess  that  Charles  appointed  him  to  the 
mastership  of  the  children.  The  diary  of  Pepys, 
who  was  an  enthusiastic  amateur  and  no  bad 
judge  of  professional  music,   contains   a  dozen 


A  Lauy  Playing. 

After  Terbo)-cJi. 


PURCELL  203 

entries  in  praise  of  Cooke's  compositions  ;  and 
his  quality  can  be  still  better  tested  by  the  fact 
that  Pelham  Humphreys  and  John  Blow,  as  well 
as  Henry  Purcell,  were  among  the  famous  com- 
posers who  received  instruction  in  his  school. 

It  is  said  of  Captain  Cooke  that  he  was  a 
coxcomb,  and  that  his  death  in  1672  was  not 
unconnected  with  the  chagrin  he  felt  at  the 
growing  popularity  of  his  own  pupil,  Pelham 
Humphreys.  But  he  seems  to  have  done  all  his 
duty  by  young  Purcell.  At  the  age  of  nine  the 
lad  found  himself  in  print,  his  first  published 
work  being  a  short  three-part  song  called  Sweet 
TyranesSy  I  now  resign.  At  eleven  "  Master 
Purcell "  wrote  the  music  for  The  Address  of  the 
Children  of  the  Chapel  Royal  to  the  King  and  their 
Master,  Captain  Cooke,  on  His  Majesties  Birthday, 
A.D.  1670.  This  was  the  beginning  of  his  pro- 
digious activity.  He  began  to  pour  out  anthems ; 
and  it  is  even  claimed  for  him  that  the  theatre- 
music  traditionally  known  as  Lock's  Music  for 
"  Macbeth  "  was  written  by  the  learned  and  am- 
bitious Child  of  the  Chapel  Royal. 

The  reader  should  remind  himself  that  al- 
though, for  the  sake  of  continuity,  the  foregoing 


204  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

chapter  carried  on  the  story  of  French  music 
well  into  the  eighteenth  century,  Captain  Cooke 
and  Pelham  Humphreys  and  Henry  Purcell  all 
lived  and  died  in  the  seventeenth  century,and  were 
therefore  contemporaries  of  LuUy.  It  is  to  the 
credit  of  King  Charles  that  he  not  only  promised 
but  paid  to  the  young  Humphreys  at  least  four 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  to  defray  the  cost  of 
his  studying  under  Lully  in  Paris.  The  youth 
was  on  the  Continent  three  years  with  not  alto- 
gether happy  results.     Says  Pepys  : 

Home,  and  there  find  as  I  expected  Mr.  Csesar 
and  litde  Pelham  Humphreys,  lately  returned  from 
France,  and  is  an  absolute  Monsieur  as  full  of  form 
and  confidence  and  vanity,  and  disparages  every- 
thing and  everybody's  skill  but  his  own.  But  to 
hear  how  he  laughs  at  all  the  king's  musick  here 
.  .  .  that  they  cannot  keep  time  or  tune,  nor  under- 
stand anything. 

Humphreys  was  Purcell's  senior  by  eleven 
years,  and  on  the  death  of  Cooke  he  succeeded 
to  the  mastership  of  the  children.  Newly  wedded 
to  a  bride  of  rare  beauty  and  rising  higher  every 
month  in  royal  favour,  Pelham  Humphreys 
seemed  to  be  the  spoilt  child  of  fortune  ;    but 


PURCELL  205 

within  two  years  the  pavement  of  the  Abbey 
cloisters  was  lifted  to  receive  his  poor  young 
body. 

The  third  master  of  the  children  in  the  recon- 
stituted chapel  was  Dr.  John  Blow.  Although 
(or  because)  he  had  never  been  sent  to  France, 
Blow  was  a  musician  of  remarkable  attainments. 
He  had  splendid  natural  gifts,  and  his  music, 
which  was  often  far  in  advance  of  his  epoch,  is 
intrinsically  more  interesting  than  LuUy's.  He 
was  a  great  enough  man  to  rise  above  jealousy  ; 
and  although  he  soon  discerned  that  Purcell 
had  it  in  him  to  outshine  his  master  as  brilliantly 
as  Pelham  Humphreys  had  outshone  Captain 
Cooke,  he  appears  to  have  done  all  he  could  to 
push  his  pupil  forward.  In  1676  Purcell  was 
made  music-copyist  at  the  Abbey,  and  it  is  even 
said  that,  in  1680,  Blow  resigned  the  Abbey 
organ  in  Purcell's  favour. 

But  the  path  to  the  highest  musical  glory  and 
the  richest  rewards  no  longer  wound  in  and  out 
among  the  stone  columns  and  under  the  dim 
vaults  of  churches.  Monteverde  had  come  and 
gone,  and  the  New  Music  divided  Purcell  from 
Byrd  and  Tallis  and  the  other  Tudor  writers  of 


2o6  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

motets  and  masses.  To  King  Charles  and  his 
Court  church-music  was  mainly  an  additional 
item  in  the  enjoyments  of  each  week — a  chastened 
enjoyment,  no  doubt,  but  an  enjoyment  first  and 
foremost.  The  Netherlanders  had  generally 
written  church-music  for  musicians  ;  Palestrina 
wrote  it  for  Christians  :  but  the  composers  of 
the  Restoration  had  to  write  it  for  worldlings. 
And,  as  in  the  case  of  LuUy,  the  worldlings  did 
not  care  to  listen  to  a  composer  in  church  unless 
he  could  prove  his  powers  in  the  world.  Accord- 
ingly Henry  Purcell's  occupations  immediately 
after  he  had  reached  his  eighteenth  year  are  said 
to  have  been  fearfully  and  wonderfully  mixed. 
As  the  Abbey  music -copyist  he  must  often 
have  laboured  at  the  churchly  and  learned  task 
of  bringing  order  out  of  the  chaos  in  which 
lay  the  surviving  fragments  of  the  Elizabethan 
part-books,  while  the  rest  of  his  time  was  de- 
voted to  secular  composition,  not  excluding 
theatre  -  music  for  the  licentious  Restoration 
dramatists. 

Until  quite  lately  all  Purcell's  biographers  some- 
what indolently  concurred  in  crediting  the  lad 
Purcell  with  certain  compositions  for  the  theatre 


PURCELL  207 

which  are  marked  by  such  a  mature  worldliness 
that  it  gives  one  a  shock  to  find  them  ascribed  to 
a  youth  in  his  teens.  For  example,  it  has  been 
stated  over  and  over  again  that  Purcell  wrote 
the  outspoken  music  of  Shadwell's  Libertine  as 
early  as  1676,  during  his  first  year  as  music- 
copyist.  The  Libertine  was  based  on  the  same 
story  as  that  of  //  Dissoluto  PunitOy  now  known 
to  all  the  world  as  Mozart's  Don  Giovanni.  It 
has  also  been  regularly  afiirmed  that,  in  1677, 
Purcell  wrote  theatre-music  for  a  work  by  the 
naughty  Mrs.  Aphra  Behn.  The  truth  is  that  all 
his  important  theatre-music  belongs  to  the  last 
decade  of  Purcell's  life.  But  the  fact  remains 
that  secular  preoccupations  or  some  other  cause 
moved  the  young  man  to  give  up  his  post  as 
music-copyist  in  1678. 

In  their  anxiety  to  make  the  most  of  a  pre- 
cocity which  in  Purcell's  case  was  not  strongly 
marked,  all  the  popular  writers  of  his  life  have 
affirmed  that  the  astonishing  opera  of  Di/^o  and 
Mneas  was  written  in  1675,  when  the  composer 
was  only  seventeen.  But  T)ido  and  Mneas  cannot 
have  been  produced  before  1680,  as  it  was  "per- 
formed   at    Mr.    Priest's    Boarding  -  school    at 


2o8  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Chelsey,"^  and  the  date  of  Priest's  migration  to 
Chelsea  is  approximately  fixed  by  an  advertise- 
ment in  the  London  Gazette  for  25  November, 
1680,  which  reads  : 

Josias  Priest,  dancing-master,  who  kept  a  board- 
ing-school of  gentlewomen  in  Leicester-fields,  is  re- 
moved to  the  great  school-house  at  Chelsey  that 
was  Mr.  Portman's.  There  will  continue  the  same 
masters  and  others  to  the  improvement  of  the  said 
school. 

From  the  fact  that  Dido  cannot  have  been 
performed  before  1680,  it  has  been  inconse- 
quently  concluded,  even  by  Purcell's  often  admir- 
able biographer,  Mr.  W.  H.  Cummings,  that  the 
opera  belongs  to  that  year.  But  Mr.  Josias  Priest 
remained  a  long  time  at  "  the  great  school-house 
that  was  Mr.  Portman's  "  ;  and  Mr.  W.  Barclay 
Squire  has  recently  almost  proved,  by  a  curious 
collation  of  out-of-the-way  evidence,  that  Dido 
was  composed  after  the  final  fall  of  the  Stuarts, 
when  Purcell  had  passed  his  thirtieth  year.  The 
point  is  important.  To  date  Dido  and  /Eneas 
in  1675,  °^  ^^^^  ^^  1680,  is  to  set  the  student 

1  Chelsea  is  meant.  Sir  Hubert  Parry's  "Chertsey"  in  The  Oxford 
History  of  Music,  Vol.  Ill,  is  probably  a  slip  of  the  pen. 


PURCELL  209 

of  Purcell's  work  an  insoluble  riddle.  It  would 
not  be  one  whit  more  misleading  to  assure  a 
student  of  Wagner  that  Tristan  and  Isolda  was 
written  before  The  Flying  Dutchman.  But  both 
the  musicianship  and  the  emotional  contents  of 
Dido  become  intelligible  when  Mr.  Squire's  con- 
clusions are  accepted. 

It  is  said  that,  despite  his  ceasing  to  be  the 
Abbey  copyist,  Purcell  did  not  desist  from  writ- 
ing religious  music.  But  if  the  truth  must 
be  told,  his  best  anthems  in  1679  were  only 
accidentally  religious.  One  John  Gosling,  or 
Gostling,  a  minor  canon  of  Canterbury  Cathe- 
dral, came  Purcell's  way.  Gosling  was  blessed 
with  one  of  the  most  stupendous  and  widely- 
ranging  bass  voices  on  record.  This  was  the 
Gosling  upon  whose  name  Charles  II  made  the 
obvious  pun,  and  to  whom  he  gave  a  silver  egg 
full  of  guineas  with  a  graceful  speech  about  eggs 
being  good  for  the  voice.  In  order  to  have  the 
pleasure  of  composing  for  the  grand  voice  of 
this  cleric,  Purcell  wrote  Behold^  I  bring  you  glad 
tidings^  and  other  anthems  in  which  the  part  for 
the  solo  bass  went  down  to  low  F,  E,  and  even 
D.     One    of   these    anthems    was    the    striking 


2IO  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

They  that  go  down  to  the  Sea  in  Ships.  Its  occasion 
was  the  exciting  storm  off  the  North  Foreland, 
when  King  Charles  and  the  Duke  of  York  were 
forced  to  "  hand  the  sails "  of  the  new  yacht 
Fubbs  (so  called  after  her  plump  or  "  fubby " 
grace  the  Duchess  of  Portsmouth)  like  common 
seamen. 

What  happened  to  Purcell  in  1680  is  not 
clearly  known.  But  in  that  year  Dr.  Blow,  im- 
pelled either  by  a  magnanimous  desire  to  see  his 
old  pupil  make  the  best  use  of  his  talents  or  by 
some  less  spiritual  motives,  retired  from  his 
position  as  organist  of  Westminster  Abbey. 
Purcell  succeeded  him.  He  had  only  just  come 
to  man's  estate  ;  but  he  held  the  post  with  ever 
increasing  glory  till  his  death  at  the  age  of 
thirty-seven,  when  Blow  returned  to  the  old 
organ-bench  once  more. 

From  the  outset  Purcell  appears  to  have  taken 
himself  with  becoming  seriousness  in  his  new 
position.  He  married  without  delay.  Of  his 
bride  little  is  known  save  that  her  name  was 
Frances.  Sir  John  Hawkins,  writing  eighty 
years  after  the  alleged  event,  transcribed  with 
a  wavering  pen   some  wretched  hearsay  to   the 


PURCELL  211 

effect  that  Frances  was  a  shrew,  and  that  she 
greatly  hastened  her  consumptive  husband's  death 
by  shutting  him  out  of  doors  all  one  November 
night  because  he  had  disobeyed  her  orders  and 
returned  home  after  twelve  o'clock.  If  this  were 
true,  there  would  be  a  grim  prophetic  irony  in 
the  fact  that  Purcell's  first  composition  was  called 
Sweet  TyranesSj  I  now  resign.  But  it  is  perhaps 
merely  one  more  product  of  the  persistent  myth 
according  to  which  all  famous  artists  have  been 
precocious,  poor,  and  unlucky  in  love. 

In  days  when  most  things  went  by  favour, 
worldly  prudence  demanded  that  one  should 
neglect  no  opportunity  of  flattering  the  great. 
Occasions  for  loyal  outpourings  abounded.  When 
the  King  or  the  Duke  of  York  went  out  of 
town,  it  was  in  the  nature  of  things  that  His 
Highness  should  come  back  again  ;  and  Purcell 
was  careful  to  compose  for  the  return  a  "  Wel- 
come Song "  or  ode  of  thanksgiving.  That  he 
should  have  written  J  Welcome  Song  for  His  Royal 
Highness' s  return  from  Scotland  was  natural  enough 
in  days  when  Englishmen  had  hardly  ceased  to 
think  of  Scotland  as  a  foreign  country,  and  when 
London  and  Edinburgh  were  a  week's  journey 


212  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

apart ;  but  it  tries  one's  gravity  a  little  to  meet 
with  such  tributes  as  the  ode  for  the  King  On 
his  return  from  Newmarket.  Purcell,  however, 
could  play  the  courtier  without  ceasing  to  be  an 
artist.  That  his  attachment  to  the  Stuarts  was 
only  superficial  is  proved  by  the  ease  with  which 
he  transferred  his  allegiance  to  Dutch  William  ; 
and  the  ceremonious  music  which  he  wrote  for 
both  dynasties  was  as  good  as  he  could  make  it. 
His  anthems  for  the  coronation  of  King  James, 
/  was  glad  and  My  heart  is  inditing^  are  among 
his  best  works,  while  his  Ode  in  honour  of  King 
James^  beginning  Sound  the  Trumpet^  beat  the 
Drum,  was  immediately  acknowledged  to  be  so 
fine  a  masterpiece  that  its  duet.  Let  desar  and 
Urania  live,  used  to  be  inserted  in  the  birthday 
odes  of  Court-composers  throughout  the  whole 
century  following  Purcell's  death.  If  his  music 
for  William  and  Mary  was  even  finer  than  his 
music  for  Charles  and  James,  the  reason  was 
simply  that  Purcell  had  grown  to  be  a  riper  man 
and  a  bolder  musician. 

The  newly  married  composer's  loyal  attentions 
to  the  Court  did  not  pass  unrewarded.  In  1682, 
without  having  to  abandon  Westminster  Abbey, 


PURCELL  213 

he  was  granted  the  dignity  and  emoluments  of 

Organist    of   the    Chapel    Royal.      In    gratitude 

Purcell    set    about    "laying    at     His     Majesty's 

sacred    feet"    his    first    printed    volume,    called 

Sonnatas  of  III  Parts.      In    the   preface   to   this 

work  Purcell,  who  never  fully  realized  how  truly 

English  was  his  own  genius,   protested  that  he 

had— 

.  .  .  faithfully  endeavour'd  a  just  imitation  of 
the  most  fam'd  Italian  Masters ;  principally  to  bring 
the  Seriousness  and  gravity  of  that  sort  of  Musick 
into  vogue  and  reputation  among  our  Country-men, 
whose  humour,  'tis  time  now,  should  begin  to  loath 
the  levity  and  balladry  of  our  neighbours. 

A  little  further  on  Purcell  declared  that  he 
was  "  not  ashamed  to  own  his  unskilfulness  in 
Italian  Language"  ;  which  was,  perhaps,  just  as 
well  seeing  that  he  went  on  to  define  a  Largo 
as  "a  very  brisk,  swift  or  fast  movement."  But 
the  end  of  his  preface  is  wholly  delightful  : — 

The  Author  has  no  more  to  add,  but  his  hearty 
wishes,  that  his  Book  may  fall  into  no  other  hands 
but  theirs  who  carry  Musical  Souls  about  them  j  for 
he  is  willing  to  flatter  himself  into  a  belief  that 
with  Such  his  labours  will  seem  neither  unpleasant 
nor  unprofitable.     Vale. 


214  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Unhappily,  the  persons  who  carry  Musical 
Souls  about  them  have  never  been  named 
Legion  ;  and  as  Purcell  had  modestly  fixed  the 
subscription  price  for  his  book  at  ten  shillings, 
a  good  part  of  the  engraver's  and  printer's 
charges  had  to  be  defrayed  out  of  his  own 
pocket.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that 
upon  his  second  venture  into  music-publishing 
Purcell  denied  himself  the  luxury  of  a  copper- 
plate engraver  and  brought  out  a  volume 
poorly  and  cheaply  printed  from  movable 
type. 

During  the  short  and  luckless  reign  of  the 
second  James,  Purcell  was  prolific  in  loyal  out- 
pourings, including  Why  are  all  the  Mmes  Mute? 
and  Te  Tuneful  Muses.  Yet,  oddly  enough,  fate 
had  marked  him  out  to  do  as  much  as  any  man 
in  England  for  "  the  Glorious  Revolution." 
Without  dreaming  of  the  uses  to  which  it  would 
be  put,  Purcell  composed  a  military  "  Quickstep" 
just  when  the  feeling  against  King  James  was 
rising  to  its  height.  It  happened  that  the  music 
of  this  Quickstep  could  be  fitted  to  the  words 
of  a  doggerel  song  called  "  Lilli-burlero,"  in 
which  Roman  Catholics  in  general  and  the  Irish 


The  Lute-plavep. 

After  Franz  Hah. 


PURCELL  215 

Papists    in    particular    were    roundly    ridiculed. 
According  to  Bishop  Burnet,   the  song — 

.  .  .  made  an  impression  on  the  army  that  cannot 
be  imagined  by  those  who  saw  it  not.  The  whole 
army,  and  at  last  the  people,  both  in  city  and  country, 
were  singing  it  perpetually,  and  perhaps  never  had 
so  slight  a  thing  so  great  an  effect. 

To  be  faithful  to  the  Stuarts  meant  that  one 
could  not  join  in  singing  the  ear-tickling,  irre- 
sistible strain,  and  the  result  was  that  thousands 
of  people  who  had  no  other  reason  for  welcom- 
ing a  Dutchman  and  a  Calvinist  went  over  to 
William's  side.  Lord  Wharton,  the  Viceroy  in 
Ireland,  who  is  said  to  have  been  the  first  to 
pounce  upon  Purcell's  catchy  tune,  boasted  that 
"  Lilli-burlero  "  had  "sung  a  deluded  prince  out 
of  three  kingdoms." 

Having  thus  assisted,  albeit  involuntarily,  to 
seat  William  firmly  upon  the  throne,  Purcell 
naturally  reckoned  on  a  modest  share  of  the  loot. 
Accordingly  he  bestirred  himself  to  make  profit- 
able use  of  their  Majesties'  coronation.  In  Pur- 
cell's time  the  Abbey  organ  was  placed  on  the 
north  side  of  the  choir,  so  that  persons  up  in  the 
organ-loft  had  a  direct  view  of  the  low  platform 


2i6  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

or  "  theatre  "  on  which  the  principal  solemnities 
took  place.  Seeing  that  the  owner  of  a  single 
house  near  the  west  end  of  the  Abbey  is  stated 
by  Sir  John  Hawkins  to  have  netted  £ S'^'^ 
simply  for  his  view  of  the  outdoor  procession, 
a  few  seats  in  the  organ-loft  were  no  doubt 
marketable  at  a  great  price.  Purcell  did  not 
neglect  his  opportunity.  An  unknown  quantity 
of  cash  came  into  his  hands.  But  he  had  reckoned 
without  the  Dean  and  Chapter,  who  solemnly 
resolved   on    i8   April,    1689,   that   Mr.   Purcell 

was — 

...  to  pay  to  Mr,  Needham  such  money  as  was 
received  by  him  for  places  in  the  organ-loft,  and  in 
default  thereof  his  place  to  be  declared  null  and 
void,  and  his  stipend  or  salary  to  be  detained  in  the 
treasurer's  hands  till  further  orders. 

Mr.  Purcell  paid,  and  kept  his  place.  And 
instead  of  sulking,  he  promptly  came  forward 
with  another  Welcome  Song^  and  with  an  ode 
acclaiming  "  the  Great  Nassau."  Meanwhile  his 
works  for  the  theatre  were  multiplying  ;  and  it 
is  to  this  period  that  the  wonderful  DUo  belongs. 

The  long  persistence  of  musical  writers  in 
their  error  as   to   Dido's  date  has  obscured   the 


PURCELL  217 

opera's  true  history.  It  appears  that  Charles  II 
had  brought  over  from  France  one  Grabu  to 
succeed  the  dead  Pelham  Humphreys  as  a  pur- 
veyor of  Lullian  operas.  The  luckless  Cambert,^ 
whom  Lulli  had  manoeuvred  out  of  France,  is 
also  said  to  have  laboured  at  Charles's  Court. 
But  the  transplanted  music  of  these  Frenchmen 
did  not  thrive  on  British  soil.  Under  James  II 
Grabu  enjoyed  every  advantage,  including  the 
royal  patronage  and  a  libretto  by  Dryden  called 
Albion  and  Alhanhis.  The  great  man  was  graciously 
pleased  to  approve  of  Dryden's  libretto,  which, 
he  said — 

.  .  .  could  not  but  excite  my  genius  and  raise  it  to  a 
greater  height  in  the  composition — even  so  as  to 
surpass  itself. 

But,  in  spite  of  the  raising  and  exciting  of  his 
genius,  Grabu's  opera  came  to  grief.  Dryden, 
who  was  one  of  the  soundest  critics  who  ever 
lived,  threw  the  Frenchman  over  and  thence- 
forward allied  himself  with  Purcell.  It  was  to 
Purcell  that  he  entrusted  King  Arthur^  the  sequel 
to    Albion    and  Albanius^   as   well   as   The   Indian 

^   See  page  147. 


2i8  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Queen,  The  Indian  Emperor,  and  CEdipus.  Indeed, 
so  close  became  the  partnership  between  the 
composer  and  the  poet  that  Dryden  is  said  to 
have  flown  more  than  once  for  refuge  to  Purcell's 
official  rooms  at  St.  James's  Palace,  when  his 
creditors  were  hot  on  his  track  to  imprison  him 
for  debt. 

It  must  be  understood  that  the  pieces  just 
named,  as  well  as  all  the  rest  of  the  works  for  the 
public  theatres  in  which  Purcell  took  a  hand,  were 
not  operas  or  music-dramas,  but  simply  spoken 
plays  with  varying  amounts  of  incidental  music. 
Dryden  and  the  lesser  playwrights  were  not 
willinsr  to  shrink  down  into  mere  librettists  for 
the  honour  and  glory  of  Purcell  or  any  other 
composer.  If  one  of  the  four  sovereigns  whom 
he  served  had  had  the  wit  to  give  him  a  free 
hand  in  the  matter,  Purcell  would  probably  have 
founded  a  school  of  English  opera  far  finer 
than  any  in  Italy  or  France,  and  thus  the  main 
currents  of  the  world's  music  would  have  thence- 
forward flowed  in  different  channels.  But  the 
golden  opportunity  was  missed  ;  and  Purcell's 
first  and  last  commission  for  an  opera  pure  and 
simple  came  from  the  already  mentioned  danc- 


PURCELL  219 

ing-master,  Josias  Priest,  on  behalf  of  a  few  young 
misses  at  school.  So  magnificently  did  Purcell 
rise  high  above  this  petty  occasion  that  Dido  and 
Mneas  is  admitted  to  be  the  finest  opera  of  its 
epoch  ;  but  events  separated  it  from  the  broad 
stream  of  musical  life,  and  its  due  influence  upon 
artistic  Europe  was  frustrated.  Nor  can  Europe 
be  justly  blamed.  It  is  not  at  the  "  breaking- 
up  "  or  prize-giving  of  a  suburban  seminary  for 
young  ladies  that  one  expects  the  first  stirrings 
of  an  aesthetical  revolution. 

Nowadays,  however,  England  has  no  excuse 
for  indifference.  Dido  is  so  short  and  straight- 
forward that  there  are  few  towns  without  re- 
sources sufficient  for  its  tolerable  performance. 
It  is  very  simply  scored  for  two  violins,  a  viola, 
a  bass,  and  a  harpsichord.  Throughout  its  brief 
course,  the  work  is  so  clear  and  strong  that  only 
the  most  unmusical  and  inhuman  hearers  could 
succeed  in  feeling  bored.  It  is  true  that  Belinda, 
as  a  name  for  Dido's  confidante,  is  a  little  trying; 
but  there  is  a  long-established  precedent  for 
changing  this  poor  lady's  name  to  Anna.  It  is 
true,  alas  !  that  much  of  the  libretto  is  shock- 
ingly bad  ;  for  instance,  the  Witches'  Chorus  : 


220  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

In  our  deep-vaulted  cell 

The  charm  we'll  prepare  ; 
Too  dreadful  a  practice 

For  this  open  air. 

But,  as  a  whole,  the  verse  is  endurable,  and  it  is 
worthy  of  the  subject  in  the  closing  elegy  : 

With  drooping  wings  ye  Cupids  come 
And  scatter  roses  on  her  tomb. 

The  music,  however,  would  make  triumphant 
amends  for  a  downright  bad  poem — which  Dido 
is  not.  From  the  sinister  Prelude  and  the  popu- 
lar "  Echo  "  chorus  nearly  every  bar  brims  over 
with  truth  and  beauty.  Dido's  Death-Song, 
"When  I  am  laid  in  Earth,"  is  one  of  the  noblest 
pages  in  all  music.  It  is  built  upon  a  solemn 
ground-bass,  seven  times  repeated.  Upon  this 
instrumental  foundation,  like  a  seven-times-pro- 
nounced sentence  of  implacable  Fate,  Purcell  has 
built  vocal  phrases  of  such  ever-increasing 
poignancy  that  the  hardest-hearted  cannot  listen 
unmoved.  It  ought  to  be  a  point  of  national 
honour  in  every  town  of  England  to  perform 
Dido  and  Mneas  at  least  once  every  three  years. 

So  far  as  revivals  of  Purcell's  dramatic  music 
are   concerned,   it  is   a  case  of  Dido  and  Mneas 


PURCELL  221 

or  nothing.  For  one  reason  or  another  the  plays 
with  which  his  remaining  theatre-music  is  bound 
up  would  hardly  be  endured  by  modern  audiences. 
Take,  for  example,  The  Fairy  Queen^  the  theatre- 
copy  of  which  was  discovered  in  1901  among 
the  belongings  of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Music.^ 
The  title  rings  alluringly  of  Spenser,  but,  on 
examination,  the  thing  turns  out  to  be  a  version 
of  A  Midsummer  Nighfs  'Dream^  in  which  not  a 
single  line  of  Shakespeare's  has  been  retained. 
In  one  or  two  cases,  notably  in  'Dioclestan^  which 
is  almost  an  opera,  and  in  King  Arthur  with  its 
shivery  "  Frost  Scene  "  and  its  defiant  "  Come  if 
you  dare,"  the  music  makes  a  fairly  intelligible 
sequence  ;  but,  generally  speaking,  the  diverse 
sets  of  pieces  are  only  valuable  for  a  song  or 
two  here  and  there,  such  as  "Full  Fathom  Five," 
and  "  Come  unto  these  yellow  sands "  in  The 
Tempest^  and  "  I  attempt  from  Love's  sickness 
to  fly  "  in  The  Indian  Queen. 

So  pleasing  was  The  Indian  Queen  to  the  public 
of  Purcell's  own  day,  that  it  was  honoured  with 

^  This  was  perhaps  the  score  which  was  advertised  as  lost  in  the  London 
Gazette  dated  13  October,  1700,  when  it  was  promised  that  twenty  guineas 
would  be  paid  to  the  person  bringing  the  said  score  to  Mr.  Zackary  Baggs 
at  Covent  Garden  Theatre. 


2  22  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  attention  of  a  firm  of  music-pirates.  The 
pirates'  Preface  is  too  rich  a  repository  of 
dignity  and  impudence  to  be  passed  over.  It 
runs  : 

The  publishers  to  Mr.   Henry  PurcelL 

Sir,  having  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  with 
the  Score  or  Original  Draught  of  your  Incomparable 
Essay  of  Musick  compos'd  for  the  Play  called  the 
Indiati  Qjieeii,  It  soon  appear'd  that  we  had  found 
a  Jewel  of  very  great  Value ;  on  which  account  we 
were  unwilling  that  so  rich  a  Treasure  should  any 
longer  lie  bury'd  in  Oblivion ;  and  that  the  Common- 
wealth of  Musick  should  be  deprived  of  so  con- 
siderable a  Benefit.  Indeed,  we  well  knew  your 
innate  Modesty  to  be  such  as  not  to  be  easily  pre- 
vailed upon  to  set  forth  any  thing  in  Print,  much 
less  to  Patronize  your  own  works,  although  in  some 
respects  Inimitable.  But  in  regard  that  (the  Press 
being  now  open)  anyone  might  print  an  imperfect 
Copy  of  these  admirable  Songs  or  publish  them  in  the 
nature  of  a  Common  Ballad,  we  were  so  much  the 
more  emboldened  to  make  this  Attempt,  even  with- 
out acquainting  you  with  our  Design  •,  not  doubting 
but  your  accustomed  Candor  and  Generosity  will 
induce  you  to  pardon  this  Presumption.  As  for 
our  parts,  if  you  shall  think  fit  to  condescend  so 
far,  we  shall  always  endeavour  to  approve  ourselves 
your  obedient  servants. 


PURCELL  223 

Pirates,  however,  were  among  the  smallest  of 
Purcell's  troubles.  Death  knocked  often  at  the 
door  of  the  house  in  Dean's  Yard,  and  child 
after  child  was  carried  forth  to  the  greedy  tomb 
in  the  Abbey  cloisters.  As  for  the  young  father 
himself,  he  knew  that  he  came  of  a  consumptive 
stock,  and  he  wrote  with  feverish  activity  so  as 
to  finish  his  work  before  the  long  night  should 
descend  upon  his  short  day.  When  the  end 
drew  near  it  was  naturally  in  religious  forms 
that  he  expressed  his  grandest  thoughts,  as  in 
the  long-lived  Te  T)eum  and  'Jubilate  in  D  for 
voices,  organ,  and  orchestra,  the  finest  of  all  his 
fine  compositions  for  the  feast  of  St.  Cecilia,  the 
patron-saint  of  music. 

For  Queen  Mary's  funeral  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  which  was  solemnized  only  eight  months 
before  his  own,  Purcell  created  the  most  endur- 
ing of  all  his  sacred  works.  The  day  of  the 
Queen's  interment  was  gloomy  and  stormy,  with 
a  few  flakes  of  snow.  In  the  midst  of  the  vast 
church,  which  was  strangely  bright  with  the 
trembling  flames  of  a  thousand  candles,  a  purple 
and  gold  coflin  held  the  remains  of  her  who  had 
knelt  on  the  same  spot  hardly  six  years  before 


224  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

to  receive  a  corruptible  crown.  From  the  dim- 
ness of  the  high  roof  a  robin-redbreast,  a  fugi- 
tive from  the  storm,  kept  flying  down  and 
perching  upon  the  hearse  amidst  the  crown  and 
the  sceptre  and  the  embroidered  banners  which 
mocked  the  dead  woman  who  lay  still  beneath 
their  glittering  weight.  It  was  then  that  Pur- 
cell's  anthem,  accompanied  by  mournful  trumpets, 
broke  out  with  its  solemn  confession,  Thou 
knowest,  Lord^  the  secrets  of  our  hearts.  And  at 
every  choral  funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey  since 
the  dreary  day  when  Queen  Mary  was  laid  in 
earth  these  great  words  have  been  sung  to 
Purcell's  great  music. 

It  was  on  21  November,  1695,  at  the  hour 
when  most  of  the  musicians  of  the  Western 
Church  were  celebrating  the  first  vespers  of  the 
Feast  of  St.  Cecilia,  that  Purcell  passed  away. 
His  will,  made  on  the  day  of  his  death,  thanked 
God  that  he  was  "  in  good  and  perfect  mind  and 
memory."  He  bequeathed  everything  to  his 
wife,  who  began  to  publish  his  works  soon  after 
her  husband's  death.  He  was  buried  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  under  the  organ. 

It  is  said  that  while  Purcell  lay  dying  Arcangelo 


PURCELL  225 

Corelli,  the  gifted  pioneer  of  violin-playing  as 
we  understand  it  to-day,  was  on  the  way  to 
our  shores  for  the  express  purpose  of  meeting 
"  Harry  Purcell  .  .  .  the  only  thing  worth  see- 
ing in  England."  Although  he  expressed  him- 
self thus  ignorantly  and  arrogantly,  Corelli's 
enthusiasm  does  him  credit.  In  his  own  narrow 
garden-plot  of  instrumental  music  Corelli  per- 
ceived that  Purcell  was  almost  his  equal,  while 
the  Englishman  had  also  made  hundreds  of 
triumphant  progresses  through  those  broad  vales 
and  steep  defiles  of  choral  and  dramatic  music 
which  the  Italian  had  never  ventured  to  enter. 
And  it  is  this  exceeding  length  and  breadth  of  Pur- 
cell's  whole  achievement  which  most  surprises  the 
modern  student.  Everything  that  every  musician 
of  every  country  had  ever  done  up  to  the  clos- 
ing years  of  the  seventeenth  century  seems  to 
have  been  assimilated,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, by  Henry  Purcell.  Yet  his  vast  ac- 
quirements were  not  vast  enough  to  smother  his 
inborn  genius.  Most  of  the  defects  of  taste  in 
his  compositions,  such  as  the  dance-movements 
in  the  overtures  to  his  church-anthems,  were 
due  to  the  preferences  of  his  patrons  ;  and  his 


226  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

failure  to  build  up  a  lasting  school  of  English 
music  was  inherent  in  social  and  political  cir- 
cumstances which  his  activity  was  too  short-lived 
to  transcend. 

The  open-mindedness  of  Purcell  in  regard  to 
musical  grammar  is  writ  large  both  in  his  prac- 
tice and  in  his  theory.  Concerning  "  Mr.  Simp- 
son's rule  in  three  parts  for  counterpoint,"  Purcell 
wrote  in  his  revision  of  John  Playforas  Introduc- 
tion to  the  Skill  of  Mu sick  that  the  said  rule  was 
"  too  strict  and  destructive  to  good  air,  which 
ought  to  be  preferred  above  such  nice  rules." 
The  words  give  the  key  to  the  character  of 
Purcell,  who  was  born  to  lead  his  contempo- 
raries rather  than  to  follow  his  predecessors. 
But  he  did  not  live  long  enough  to  reweld 
England  into  that  mass  of  general  European 
culture  from  which  the  Reformation  and  the 
Commonwealth  had  broken  our  country  away. 
Had  the  gods  granted  him  twenty  extra  years 
of  health  and  strength,  the  genius  of  Purcell 
might  have  flung  a  golden  bridge  across  the 
Channel  ;  but  he  died  at  thirty-seven,  leaving 
England  an  island  still. 

More.    Had  Purcell  lived  twenty  years  longer. 


PURCELL  227 

Handel,  on  his  first  visit  to  England,  would 
have  found  a  musician  as  wonderful,  though  not 
as  gigantic,  as  himself  in  possession  of  the  field. 
Prosaic  readers  may  exclaim  impatiently  that 
poor,  consumptive  Purcell  did  not  live  twenty 
years  longer  and  there's  an  end  of  it.  No  doubt 
they  are  right ;  and  yet  one  cannot  forbear  a  sigh 
at  the  thought  that  if  Westminster  Abbey  and 
Dean's  Yard  had  been  built  on  breezy  Hamp- 
stead  instead  of  in  foggy  Westminster  the 
musical  history  of  the  world  would  have  been 
changed. 


HANDEL 

/^N  the  twenty-third  day  of  April,  1683,  there 
was  a  decorous  wedding  at  Halle,  in  Saxony, 
seven  or  eight  leagues  north  of  Leipsic.  To 
say  that  it  was  a  case  of  May  marrying  December 
would  be  both  unkind  and  untrue.  In  this 
instance  the  end  of  October  was  marrying  the 
beginning  of  July.  To  be  precise,  the  bride, 
Dorothea  Taust,  was  just  thirty-two,  while  her 
spouse,  Meister  Georg  Handel,  a  widower,  had 
celebrated  the  sixtieth  anniversary  of  his  birth 
six  months  before  the  wedding.  The  bride- 
groom was  the  official  barber  -  surgeon  of 
Giebichenstein,  a  suburb  of  Halle,  where  Georg 
Taust,  the  bride's  father,  was  the  Lutheran 
pastor. 

If  a  witch  or  a  prophetic  fairy  had  intruded 
herself  upon  the  wedding-feast,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  bent  old  woman  in  many  a  German  folk- 
tale,  her    predictions    would    have   amazed    the 


HANDEL  229 

company  as  hugely  as  anything  that  witch  or 
fairy  has  ever  foretold  about  the  slaying  of 
giants  and  the  winning  of  kingdoms.  She  could 
have  said,  without  straying  from  the  truth  : — 

"  Two  sons  will  be  born  to  you.  The  elder 
will  die  at  his  birth.  As  for  the  younger,  he 
will  live  to  be  one  of  the  seven  musical  wonders 
of  the  world.  To-day  is  a  great  day  for  England. 
It  is  the  feast-day  of  England's  saint,  the  stout 
St.  George.  Also,  it  is  both  the  birthday  and 
the  death-day  of  Shakespeare,  England's  greatest 
man.  And  it  will  be  in  England  that  your 
young  son  will  grow  up  to  the  stature  of  a 
giant,  dwarfing  all  the  English  musicians  who 
have  gone  before  him  and  filling  the  whole  stage 
of  English  music  for  more  than  a  hundred  years. 
He  himself  will  turn  Englishman.  More.  These 
things  will  come  to  pass  under  a  German  Elector 
of  Hanover  reigning  in  London  as  the  English 
king." 

Had  some  such  prophecy  as  this  been  flung 
at  the  astounded  Meister  Georg,  the  mention  of 
music  would  not  have  been  the  least  stupefying 
of  its  incredible  items.  Unlike  Bach's,  Meister 
Georg's  family  had  never  reckoned  music  among 


230  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

its  gifts  and  graces.  Meister  Georg  was  an 
estimable  citizen,  whose  industry  and  skill  in 
plying  cold  steel  had  already  won  him  Court 
appointments.  Poor  Dorothea  was  clear-minded, 
pious,  dutiful,  and  so  earnest  that  she  had  "  little 
wish  for  marriage,  even  in  the  bloom  of  her 
youth."  But  neither  bride  nor  bridegroom  is 
recorded  to  have  shown  any  musical  leanings 
whatsoever. 

On  24  February,  1685,  the  couple's  second- 
born  son,  then  just  one  day  old,  was  borne  to 
the  Liebfrauenkirche,  where  he  received  the 
names  of  Georg  Friedrich.  At  the  time  of  this 
baptism,  Lully  was  upon  the  heights  of  his  fame 
and  power,  Purcell  was  entering  upon  the  last 
and  most  brilliant  decade  of  his  short  life,  and 
Bach  was  still  unborn. 

As  the  tower  of  the  Liebfrauenkirche  was  not 
far  from  the  roomy  house  where  his  childhood 
was  passed,  it  is  probable  that  the  first  melodies 
the  little  Handel  heard  were  the  chorales  in- 
toned at  evening  by  the  great  bells.  These 
clean-cut  melodies,  descending  from  the  plain- 
chant  hymnody,  surely  helped  to  endow  the 
child  with  those  qualities  of  expressiveness  and 


Haxdel. 

Front  Thomson's  Engraving  after  the  Painting  at  Windsor  Castle. 


HANDEL  231 

clearness,  combined  with  solidity,  which  char- 
acterize all  his  best  work.  It  was  also  probably 
from  the  bells  that  he  received  the  hoard  of 
definite  musical  phrases  with  which  he  so  grandly 
enriched  his  own  inventions,  such  as  the  lordly 
phrase  at  the  words,  "The  kingdoms  of  this 
world "  in  the  "  Hallelujah   Chorus." 

No  toys  could  long  please  the  tiny  Georg 
save  toy-drums  and  toy-trumpets,  toy-flutes  and 
toy-horns.  For  a  time  his  old  father  indulged 
him.  But  the  course  of  music  did  not  long  run 
smooth.  His  boy  was  intended  for  the  law,  and 
fearing  that  he  might  be  drawn  away  into  the 
somewhat  disrespectable  ranks  of  the  professional 
musicians,  Meister  Georg  took  the  extreme  step 
of  forbidding  music  altogether.  "  Music,"  the 
barber-surgeon  condescended  to  admit,  was  "  an 
elegant  art  and  a  fine  amusement ;  yet,  if  con- 
sidered as  an  occupation,  it  had  little  dignity,  as 
having  for  its  subject  nothing  better  than  mere 
entertainment."  He  went  on  to  announce  that 
he  would  have  *' no  more  jingling";  and, 
making  good  his  words,  he  not  only  purged  his 
own  home  of  all  musical  instruments,  but  also 
charged  his  son  not  to  enter  any  house  contain- 


232  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

ing  "  such  kind  of  furniture."  Worse.  Even 
the  grammar-school  to  which  the  boy  would 
naturally  have  been  sent  was  to  be  shunned, 
because  music  was  taught  therein.  No  wonder 
that  some  one  grimly  recommended  the  cutting- 
off  of  the  unhappy  little  fellow's  fingers  ! 

In  all  concerns  save  this,  Georg  Friedrich  was 
an  obedient  child.  But  he  was  no  more  capable 
of  ceasing  to  be  musical  than  of  changing  him- 
self from  a  boy  to  a  girl.  And  at  last  relief 
came.  Some  kind  body  helped  him  to  smuggle 
a  little  clavichord  into  an  attic.  Its  compass 
was  narrow  and  its  tone  weak  and  thin.  In  the 
pretty  German  phrase,  it  yielded  only  "  Mouse- 
Music."  Nevertheless,  it  served  Georg  Fried- 
rich's  turn,  and  his  "Mouse-Music"  prepared 
the  way  for  those  masterpieces  in  which  he 
thunders  on  like  leviathan  storming  through 
great  waters.  But,  according  to  a  credible  anec- 
dote, Meister  Georg  at  last  became  conscious 
of  the  ghostly  tinklings  which  floated  about  the 
house  at  night,  like  the  sighings  of  an  ^olian 
harp  ;  and  when,  lantern  in  hand,  he  mounted 
to  the  attic,  the  secret  was  out.  Tradition  is 
silent  as  to  the  immediate  sequel. 


HANDEL  233 

A  year  or  two  before  Handers  birth,  Halle 
had  ceased  to  be  the  seat  of  a  princely  house. 
But,  only  forty  miles  away,  the  Duke  of  Sitchse- 
Weissenfels  lived  in  some  state,  and  maintained 
a  ducal  "chapel."  Having  a  relative  in  the  ducal 
service,  Meister  Georg  arranged  to  pay  him  a 
visit.  His  little  son,  whose  fancy  had  been 
fired  by  all  he  had  heard  of  the  court-music, 
pleaded  hard  to  be  taken  :  but  Meister  Georg 
was  not  to  be  cajoled.  On  the  day  appointed 
the  post-chaise  rumbled  forth  on  its  journey  ;  but 
when  Halle  had  been  left  well  behind  the  old 
man  suddenly  caught  sight  of  his  offspring,  who 
had  trotted  panting  along  on  foot.  Georg  junior 
had  naturally  to  tremble  before  an  explosion  of 
anger  :  but  the  end  of  the  affair  was  that  the  big 
Georg  and  the  little  Georg  continued  the  journey 
together. 

At  Weissenfels  the  six-year-old  is  said  to  have 
played  the  organ-voluntary  at  the  end  of  the 
Sunday  morning  service.  This  can  hardly  be 
true.  But  it  is  certain  that  he  played  on  some 
keyed  instrument  or  other  in  the  hearing  of  the 
Duke,  who  sent  for  old  Georg  and  at  last 
induced  him  to  promise  that  young  Georg  should 


234  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

be  placed  at  once  under  a  competent  musician. 
And  before  dismissing  the  pair  the  Duke  filled 
the  boy's  pockets  with  money. 

Zachau,  the  organist  of  the  Liebfrauenkirche, 
was  the  teacher  under  whom  the  boy  was  placed 
on  his  return  to  Halle.  Happily  Zachau  was 
not  an  original  genius,  but  simply  an  all-round 
and  workmanlike  musician,  who  could  give  his 
pupil  a  sound  grounding  in  musical  science 
without  being  able  to  blur  his  artistic  individu- 
ality. It  is  pleasant  to  note  that  Zachau's  widow 
was  materially  remembered  more  than  once  when 
her  husband's  old  pupil  began  to  make  money  in 
England. 

So  fast  was  young  Handel's  progress  that  we 
read  of  his  composing  a  cantata  or  some  other  con- 
siderable composition  every  week.  He  himself 
declared  in  later  life  that  he  "  used  to  write  like 
a  devil  in  those  days."  Yet  Meister  Georg,  who 
was  still  determined  that  law  should  be  the  serious 
business  of  his  son's  life,  and  music  only  an 
elegant  *'  extra  subject,"  doggedly  compelled  the 
lad  to  grind  away  at  the  mill  of  classical  learning 
as  if  music  had  never  existed.  Very  few  hours 
could  have  remained  for  sport  or  bodily  exercise ; 


HANDEL  235 

but  Georg  Friedrich's  too  studious  childhood 
certainly  formed  in  him  those  habits  of  hard  and 
continuous  work  which  enabled  him  to  write  the 
Messiah  in  twenty-four  days. 

By  this  time  Berlin  had  become  a  famous 
musical  centre.  Two  hundred  and  ten  years  ago 
the  present  seat  of  the  German  Emperor  and  of 
the  Prussian  King  could  boast  of  no  prince 
greater  than  an  Elector.  Yet  many  of  the  most 
renowned  musicians  in  Europe  flocked  to  its 
Court.  And  about  1696  there  arrived  one  who 
was  to  overshadow  them  all.  It  was  the  eleven- 
year-old  Handel,  to  whom  Zachau  had  already 
imparted  his  whole  stock  of  musical  lore. 

Among  the  celebrities  who  beset  the  art- 
loving  Elector  and  his  accomplished  consort  were 
two  Italian  musicians,  who  were  fated  to  cross 
Handel's  path  again  under  another  sky.  These 
were  Attilio  Ariosti,  a  Dominican  monk,  and 
Giambattista  Buononcini,  a  composer  bred  and 
born.  Ariosti  welcomed  the  brilliant  youngster 
from  Halle  without  a  spark  of  jealousy  and 
helped  him  like  a  true  artist.  But  Buononcini, 
who  had  inhaled  from  infancy  the  atmosphere  of 
petty  spites  and  intrigues  which  too  often  fills 


236  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  homes  of  professional  musicians,  first  treated 
the  new-comer  with  silent  contempt  and  after- 
wards deliberately  tried  to  humiliate  him  pub- 
licly by  setting  before  him  a  composition  for  the 
harpsichord  overflowing  with  perverse  difficulties. 
Young  Handel's  prodigious  musicianship  enabled 
him  to  perform  the  work  without  a  wrong  note  ; 
but  his  triumph  only  fed  the  hatred  which  Buo- 
noncini  nursed  in  his  heart. 

Famous  Buononcini  notwithstanding,  the 
Elector  Friedrich  sought  the  honour  of  becom- 
ing the  young  prodigy's  patron.  He  offered  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  his  education  in  Italy,  and 
ultimately  to  place  him  in  a  post  of  importance. 
But  Meister  Georg,  who  had  already  fulfilled  his 
threescore  years  and  ten,  was  inexorable  ;  and  a 
way  was  found  of  eluding  the  Prince's  goodwill. 
Young  Georg  returned  to  Halle.  Indeed  so 
dutiful  was  he  that  even  his  father's  death  in  the 
following  year  did  not  turn  him  away  from  the 
law.  Throughout  five  years  he  persisted  in  his 
classical  studies,  and  in  1702  entered  the  newly- 
founded  University  of  Halle  as  a  law-student. 
He  matriculated  in  February.  But  in  March  an 
ill  wind  blew  Handel  some  good.     One  Johann 


HANDEL  237 

Christoph  Leporin,  organist  of  the  "  Schloss- 
und-Domkirche,"  strained  to  breaking-point  the 
patience  of  his  employers,  who  had  long  been 
scandalized  by  his  laziness  and  looseness  of  life. 
Leporin  was  dismissed  and  Handel  was  appointed 
in  his  place. 

To  be  organist  of  the  Schloss-und-Domkirche 
meant  more  work  than  ha'pence.  For  a  stipend 
of  a  hundred  and  fifty  shillings  a  year  and  a  free 
lodging  the  gay  Leporin's  successor  was  required 
to  look  after  the  repair  of  the  organ  ;  to  play  on 
all  Sundays  and  festivals  and  to  choose,  arrange 
or  compose  music  for  all  the  proper  psalms  and 
cantatas  throughout  the  year  ;  to  live  in  peace 
with  the  clergy  and  church  officers  ;  and  to  edify 
Halle  by  a  godly  life.  As  the  Schloss-und-Dom- 
kirche was  the  meeting-house  of  the  Calvinists, 
while  Handel  had  been  straitly  reared  as  a 
Lutheran,  the  new  organist's  path  was  not  with- 
out its  thorns  and  pitfalls.  But  there  were  com- 
pensations. The  Schloss-und-Domkirche  organ 
was  one  of  the  finest  in  the  world.  Its  huge 
bellows  supplied,  at  one  filling,  enough  wind  for 
"the  entire  creed  or  180  bars  of  measured 
music."     The  instrument  was  gorgeously  deco- 


238  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

rated  and  is  said  to  have  been  sixty-two  feet 
high  by  twenty  broad.  Furthermore,  his  duties 
as  a  whole  were  so  congenial  to  Handel  that  he 
voluntarily  formed  extra  bands  of  singers  and 
instrumentalists,  recruiting  them  from  his  old 
schoolfellows. 

But  towards  the  end  of  his  year  of  probation 
the  Schloss-und-Domkirche  was  probably  better 
pleased  with  Handel  than  was  Handel  with  the 
Schloss-und-Domkirche.  He  had  composed 
"  some  hundreds  of  cantatas,"  which  have  been 
lost,  and  he  seems  to  have  felt  that  Halle  was  too 
small  for  his  powers.  Accordingly  he  set  out  for 
Hamburg  at  the  beginning  of  1703. 

Hamburg  was  the  stronghold  of  Reinhard 
Keiser,  the  first  musician  to  compose  operas  en- 
tirely in  the  German  language.  At  the  theatre  or 
opera-house,  which  had  existed  just  twenty-five 
years  at  the  time  of  his  arrival,  Handel  obtained  a 
post  as  ripieno,  second  violin.  As  the  ripieno  instru- 
ments only  played  in  the  loudest  and  fullest  pas- 
sages they  were  generally  entrusted  to  the  less 
talented  performers;  so  that,  on  the  face  of  it,  the 
ex-oro-anist  of  the  Schloss-und-Domkirche  had 
come  down  in  the  world.     But  his  own  modesty 


HANDEL  239 

was  to  blame.  According^  to  Johann  Mattheson,  the 
leading  tenor  of  the  opera-house,  Handel  "  be- 
haved as  if  he  did  not  know  how  to  count  five"; 
and  it  was  only  when  he  was  suddenly  called 
upon  to  take  the  place  of  an  absent  harpsichord- 
player  that  Hamburg  found  out  the  stuff  whereof 
he  was  made. 

It  is  to  the  pen  of  the  mean  and  bumptious 
Mattheson  that  we  owe  the  following  account  of 
Handel's  strange  pilgrimage  to  the  home  of  the 
very  great  organist  and  composer  Baxtehude  : — 

On  the  17th  of  August  in  that  same  year,  1703, 
we  travelled  together  to  Liibeck  and  made  double 
fugues  in  the  coach,  da  mente  not  da  penna.  I  had 
been  invited  thither  by  the  Geheimer  Rathsprasident, 
Magnus  von  Wedderkopp,  as  successor  to  the  excel- 
lent Organist  Dieterich  Buxtehude,  and  I  took 
Handel  with  me.  We  played  on  almost  every  Organ 
and  Harpsichord  in  the  place  ;  and  with  regard  to 
our  performances,  agreed  between  ourselves  that  he 
should  only  play  upon  the  Organ  and  I  upon  the 
Harpsichord.  We  listened  also  to  the  veteran  per- 
former [Buxtehude]  in  the  Marienkirche  with  deep 
attention.  But  because  the  question  of  succession 
involved  also  that  of  a  marriage  contract,  into  which 
we  neither  of  us  had  the  slightest  desire  to  enter, 
we  left  the  place  after  receiving  many  compliments, 


240  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

unusual  honours,  and  very  pleasant  entertainment. 
Johann  Christian  Schieferdecker  afterwards  brought 
the  affair  to  a  more  satisfactory  conclusion  ;  accepted 
the  bride  after  the  death  of  her  father  in  1707,  and 
obtained  the  coveted  appointment. 

As  the  forlorn  Miss  Buxtehude  counted  thirty- 
four  years  to  Handel's  eighteen,  his  lack  of 
enthusiasm  would  not  have  been  surprising  even 
in  a  marrying  man.  But  Handel  was  an  in- 
corrigible bachelor.  Rumour  thrice  betrothed 
him  ;  the  first  time  to  Vittoria  Tesi,  in  Italy  ;  the 
second  time  to  an  English  damsel,  whose  mamma's 
indignation  at  the  match  drove  the  lover  away  in 
disgust ;  and  the  third  time  to  a  wealthy  English- 
woman who  demanded  that  he  should  cease  to 
practise  in  the  musical  profession.  But  there  is 
no  evidence  that  Rumour  spoke  the  truth. 

For  Holy  Week  of  1 704  Handel  wrote  a 
Passion  Oratorio  which,  after  being  lost  for  more 
than  a  century,  was  first  published  about  fifty  years 
ago.  But  both  Mattheson  and  Handel  aspired  to 
opera.  Mattheson,  as  the  older  and  more  in- 
fluential man,  naturally  secured  the  first  innings, 
and  his  Cleopatra  was  produced  in  the  autumn, 
with  Handel  in  the  orchestra  at  the  harpsichord. 


HANDEL  241 

and  Mattheson  himself  on  the  stage  as  Antony. 
But  Mattheson's  petty  and  fussy  nature  soon 
stirred  up  trouble.  Having  died  upon  the  stage 
as  Antony  about  half  an  hour  before  the  fall 
of  the  curtain,  he  wished  to  come  to  life  again  in 
the  orchestra,  and  play  the  harpsichord  during 
the  last  dying  speech  and  confession  of  Cleopatra. 
Handel,  however,  persisted  in  playing  to  the 
end  ;  and  Mattheson,  on  leaving  the  theatre, 
turned  and  gave  his  friend  a  box  on  the  ear. 
The  spectators  of  this  insult  promptly  formed  a 
ring  outside  the  opera-house  for  the  inevitable 
duel  ;  and  so  hot  was  Mattheson's  onslaught 
that  if  he  had  not  broken  his  wretched  sword 
against  a  big  button  of  metal  on  Handel's  coat, 
the  world  would  have  had  to  do  without  Rinaldo 
and  Teseo^  and  without  the  Messiah  and  Samson 
and  Theodora. 

Honour  being  satisfied,  the  combatants  dined 
together  on  30  December,  1704  ;  and  on  8  Jan- 
uary, 1705,  Handel's  first  opera  came  to  hearing. 
It  was  called  Almira ;  and,  with  Mattheson  in 
the  principal  part,  it  made  a  tremendous  hit. 
That  the  music  was  notable  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  it  included  the  wonderful  sarabande  familiar 
Q 


242  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

to  every  singer  in  association  with  the  words  from 
Rinaldo  (in  which  opera  Handel  used  it  over 
again)  :  "Lascia  ch'  io  pianga."  The  run  o{  Almira 
continued  till  its  successor  Nero  was  ready.  Nero^ 
like  Handel's  two  other  Hamburg  o^p^vTiS^Florinda 
and  Daphne,  is  lost  ;  but  it  was  so  sumptuously 
mounted  and  warmly  received  that  its  young 
author  was  able  not  only  to  repay  the  sums  lent 
him  by  his  mother,  but  also  to  put  by  nearly  two 
hundred  ducats. 

Mightily  pleased  with  Almira,  the  Prince  of 
Tuscany  came  forward  with  a  scheme  for  taking 
the  composer  to  study  in  Italy.  But  with  two 
hundred  ducats  in  his  locker  the  young  man 
could  afford  to  be  independent,  and  accordingly 
he  set  off  for  Italy  on  his  own  account.  It  is 
said  that  he  left  behind  him  two  large  chests  full 
of  compositions  in  MS.  which  were  afterwards 
lost.  If  this  be  true,  it  is  a  fact  of  capital 
importance  as  regards  the  hotly  argued  question 
of  Handel's  alleged  wholesale  thievings  in  later 
life  from  the  works  of  other  composers.  At  the 
time  of  his  Italian  journey  it  must  be  remembered 
that  Handel  was  equal  to  the  invention  of  such 
lovely  and  finely  expressed  melodies  as  the  sara- 


HANDEL  243 

bande  in  AJmira^  which  no  sane  person  has  ever 
accused  him  of  stealing.  Seeing  that  the  com- 
posers from  whom  Handel  is  said  to  have  thieved 
were  mostly  his  contemporaries,  and  that  they 
remained  silent  under  their  wrongs,  it  is  at  least 
conceivable  that  the  true  and  full  history  of  the 
scattered  leaves  from  Handel's  chests  would  make 
strange  reading.^ 

On  his  way  to  the  Alps,  Handel  seems  to  have 
halted  at  Halle  to  spend  Christmas  with  his 
family.  Then  he  pushed  southward  through  the 
snows  to  Florence  and  to  Rome.     In  the  Eternal 

1  The  writer  does  not  maintain  that  Handel  is  entitled  to  a  verdict 
of  "Not  Guilty"  ;  but,  after  reading  all  that  the  prosecution  has  put  into 
print,  he  contends  that  a  jury  could  not  justly  arrive  at  anything  worse  than 
"Not  Proven."  Dr.  Sedley  Taylor's  recent  Indebtedness  of  Handel  to  other 
Composers,  with  its  quarto  pages  filled  with  "deadly  parallels,"  has  a  formid- 
able look ;  but  his  argument  too  often  proceeds  by  hops,  skips,  and  jumps. 
According  to  sound  rules  of  evidence,  Urio,  Clari,  Erba,  Stradella,  MufFat, 
and  the  other  writers  from  whom  Handel  is  said  to  have  borrowed,  must 
stand  the  fires  of  textual  and  historical  criticism  before  their  printed  editions 
and  MSS.  can  be  admitted  in  a  damaging  sense.  Some  of  these  personages 
are  practically  unknown.  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour  hit  off  their  unimportance 
very  neatly  when  he  said  that  "  Handel  did  not  cheat  them  out  of  fame,  but 
cheated  them  into  it."  The  traditional  biography  of  Stradella  has  turned 
out  to  be  romantic  moonshine.  Even  Handel's  commonplace  book  in 
the  Fitzwilliam  Museum,  which  is  the  most  damaging  document  in  the 
plaintiff's  dossier,  will  not  support  the  weight  of  argument  based  upon  it. 
Probably  a  striking  personal  experience  of  Dr.  Prout  (retold  in  Dr.  Sedley 
Taylor's  book)  shook  that  admirable  scholar  out  of  his  judicial  calmness, 
and  thus  gave  a  fillip  to  the  plaintiff's  case. 


244  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

City  he  had  opportunities  of  still  further  dignify- 
ing his  style  by  hearing  the  writings  a  capella 
of  the  Roman  masters.  Returning  northwards 
he  captivated  Florence  with  his  new  opera  Rod- 
rigo.  Later  on,  he  stormed  Venice  with  his 
Agrippina^  which  made  the  audience  shout  "  Long 
live  the  Saxon !  "  and  to  behave  "  like  a  company 
of  madmen."  At  Venice,  Domenico  Scarlatti  is 
said  to  have  heard  Handel  strum  a  harpsichord 
at  a  masked  ball,  and  to  have  exclaimed,  "  That 
must  be  either  the  Saxon  or  the  Devil  !  " 

Altogether  the  Saxon  spent  nearly  four  years 
in  Italy.  Princes  and  Cardinals  heaped  honours 
upon  him.  Lotti,  the  Scarlattis,  and  other  fine 
musicians  became  his  fast  friends.  From  the 
opera-houses  of  Florence  and  Venice,  of  Rome 
and  Naples,  he  reaped  rich  rewards.  Better  still, 
he  acquired  therein  the  one  thing  which  his 
musicianship  had  lacked  —  the  art  of  writing 
skilfully  for  the  human  voice.  He  quitted  Italy 
in  1 710,  no  doubt  leaving  behind  him  countless 
memories  of  his  improvisations  upon  the  organ 
and  harpsichord  for  the  benefit  of  the  minor 
Italian  composers,  from  whom  he  was  afterwards 
to  steal  his  own  ideas.     It  is  also  certain   that 


HANDEL  245 

in  Rome  he  wrote  down  many  works  of  which 
the  MSS.  are  lost. 

Passing  through  Hanover,  Handel  obtained 
the  post  of  Kapellmeister  to  the  Elector  George, 
afterwards  George  I  of  England.  His  salary 
was  1500  ducats  a  year.  It  was  understood  that 
he  could  forthwith  enjoy  a  reasonable  furlough 
for  the  rounding  off  of  his  European  tour. 
Accordingly  he  journeyed  through  Holland  to 
England,  reaching  London  two  or  three  weeks 
before  the  shortest  day  of  17 10. 

France  with  her  Lully,  Italy  with  her  Monte- 
verde  and  his  successors,  and  Germany  with  her 
Keiser,  had  each  a  national  opera  in  the  ver- 
nacular :  but  the  lamentable  death  of  Purcell  had 
cut  down  English  opera  before  it  was  old  enough 
to  walk.  Only  a  few  months  before  Handel's 
arrival,  out-and-out  Italian  opera  with  Italian 
singers  had  been  imported  into  London  and  this 
"  irrational  and  exotic  entertainment,"  as  Dr. 
Johnson  afterwards  called  it,  became  the  rage. 
It  was  in  vain  that  Addison,  the  champion  of  a 
vernacular  theatre,  launched  his  epigram  against 
the  amateurs  who,  "  tired  with  only  under- 
standing half  the  piece,  found  it  more  convenient 


246  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

not  to  understand  any."  Knowing  that  the 
famous  Mr.  Handel  was  come  to  town  fresh  from 
his  Italian  triumphs,  Aaron  Hill,  the  director  of 
the  Haymarket,  drew  upon  Tasso  for  a  libretto 
and  straightway  engaged  one  Rossi  to  turn  it  into 
Italian  verse,  and  Handel  to  furnish  it  with  music. 
So  strenuously  did  the  musician  fall  to  work  that 
he  had  repeatedly  to  spur  on  the  poet  for 
further  supplies  of  words.  The  result  was 
Rinaldo. 

General  hearers  of  Handel's  sacred  works 
often  wonder  why  his  operas  are  never  performed, 
although  half  a  dozen  of  his  oratorios  survive  in 
the  modern  repertory.  Evangelical  writers  have 
rushed  in  with  the  answer  that  Handel's  genius 
only  awoke  to  full  life  when  he  "  abandoned  the 
licentious  mythology  of  Greece  and  Rome  and 
consecrated  his  pen  to  the  cause  of  religion." 
But  the  true  explanation  lies  in  the  almost  in- 
credible artificiality  of  the  Italian  operatic  form 
into  which  Handel  was  forced  to  cramp  and 
distort  his  inventions.  Its  restrictions  have  been 
so  well  summarized  by  Rockstro  that  his  words 
may  usefully  be  transcribed  here.^ 

W.  S.  Rockstro's  Life  of  Handel  (London,  1883),  pp.  62  ff. 


HANDEL  247 

The  Poet  was  not  even  permitted  to  use  his  own 
judgment  with  regard  to  the  members  of  his 
Dramatis  Persona;  nor  could  the  Composer  dis- 
tribute his  voices  in  accordance  with  any  other 
scheme  than  that  laid  down  by  law.  The  strict 
rule  demanded  the  employment  of  six  principal 
characters  only — three  Women  and  three  Men.  A 
fourth  INIan  was  indeed  admissible  in  cases  of  neces- 
sity; and  a  Woman  was  sometimes  permitted  to 
take  a  Man's  part — especially  if  she  had  a  deep- 
toned  voice  of  masculine  character:  but  these 
indulgences  were  not  very  frequently  claimed. 
The  First  Woman  (Pri>?ia  Donna)  was  always  a  high 
Soprano;  the  Second  or  Third  a  Contralto.  The 
First  Man  {Prima  uomo)  was  an  artificial  Soprano ; 
and  it  was  indispensable  that  he  should  appear  as 
the  hero  of  the  piece,  though  the  role  assigned  to 
him  might  be  that  of  Ajax  or  Julius  Caesar.  The 
second  Man,  if  not  a  Soprano  like  the  first,  was  an 
artificial  Contralto.  The  Third  was  either  another 
Contralto,  or,  more  rarely,  a  Tenor. 

When  a  Fourth  Man  was  needed  he  could  be 
a  Tenor  or  even  a  Bass.  But  in  many  of 
Handel's  operas,  including  the  magnificent  Teseo^ 
there  was  neither  Tenor,  Baritone  nor  Bass. 
Each  of  the  six  principals  claimed  the  right  to 
sing  at  least  one  air  in  each  of  the  three  acts  of 
the  piece.     But   the   composer   was  not  free  to 


248  GREAT  MUSICIANS: 

impose  upon  them  such  airs  as  musical  and 
dramatic  fitness  demanded.  The  airs  were  of 
five  approved  kinds  ;  and  two  airs  of  the  same 
kind  were  never  allowed  in  succession.  There 
was  generally  a  grand  duet :  but  other  concerted 
pieces  were  forbidden  and  the  Chorus  (for  the 
principals  only)  was  often  confined  to  the  finale 
of  the  third  act. 

In  later  life,  Handel  often  broke  loose  from 
one  or  other  of  these  fetters,  notably  by  employ- 
ing a  tenor  instead  of  an  artificial  soprano  as  the 
hero  ;  but  even  when  he  wrenched  his  wrists  free 
he  was  still  chained  at  the  ankles.  Hence  his 
works  for  the  stage  never  became  music-dramas. 
They  were  no  more  than  musical  and  spectacular 
entertainments,  in  which  a  frail  thread  of  un- 
dramatically  told  story  held  together  a  bundle  of 
long  recitatives  and  long,  long  songs  showily 
sung  by  an  overpaid  crew  of  jealous  and  vain 
virtuosi.  Yet,  despite  the  fact  that  Handel's  Italian 
operas  are  dead  as  wholes,  there  are  parts  of  them 
which  are  as  green  as  Christmas  mistletoe  hanging 
high  amid  the  leafless  branches  of  a  blackened  oak.^ 

1  The   writer    cannot    agree  with    Mr.  J.   A.  FuUer-Maitland   (in    The 
Oxford  History    of  Music,  Vol.   IV,  p.  204)   that    the    valuable    songs    in 


HANDEL  349 

Rinaldo  is  so  rich  in  beauties  that  its  triumph 
was  immediate  and  overwhelming.  The  manage- 
ment spared  no  expense  to  give  it  a  good  send- 
off.  For  example,  during  Almirena's  song  in 
Armida's  enchanted  garden,  great  numbers  of 
living  birds  were  let  loose  upon  the  stage.  But 
even  without  the  "  sparrows,"  as  Addison  called 
them  in  disgust,  Rinaldo  was  sure  of  success  by 
virtue  of  its  melodies,  which  included  the  well- 
known  march,  the  air,  "  Lascia  ch'  io  pianga " 
(already  mentioned  as  a  sarabande  in  the  Ham- 
burg Almira\  the  hero's  song  "  Cara  Sposa," 
which  Handel  himself  looked  upon  as  the  best 
he  ever  wrote,  and  "  II  tricerbero  umiliato," 
which  was  bawled  at  thousands  of  eighteenth- 
century  drinking-bouts  to  the  words  "Let  the 
waiter  bring  clean  glasses."  The  public  rushed 
so  eagerly  to  buy  copies  of  the  Rinaldo  songs 
that  Walsh,  the  publisher,  made  fifteen  hundred 
pounds,  thus  prompting  Handel  to  suggest  that 
Walsh  should  compose  the  next  opera  and  leave  to 
Handel  the  more  lucrative  task  of  publishing  it. 

Handel's  forty-two  operas  are  ''very  few."  Even  the  unsatisfactory 
selection  published  at  a  low  price  by  the  late  W,  T,  Best  (who  omits 
Omhra  mat  fii,  one  of  the  loveliest  movements  in  all  music)  will  convince 
most  readers  to  the  contrary. 


2  so  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Meanwhile  the  Elector  George  must  have 
been  thinking  that  his  new  Kapellmeister's  holi- 
day had  lasted  long  enough  ;  and  Handel  re- 
turned to  Hanover  after  an  absence  of  six 
months.  But  London  called  to  him  in  a  voice 
that  would  not  be  denied,  and  in  the  autumn 
of  1 7 12  he  once  more  took  shipping  for  England, 
having  obtained  leave  of  absence  on  the  distinct 
understanding  that  he  would  resume  his  duties 
"  within  a  reasonable  time."  As  everybody 
knows,  the  reasonable  time  stretched  out  so  long 
that  the  Elector  George  rejoined  Handel  in 
England  before  Handel  showed  any  disposition 
to  rejoin  the  Elector  George  in  Hanover. 

In  thanksgiving  for  that  doubtful  blessing 
called  the  Peace  of  Utrecht,  Queen  Anne  went 
over  the  head  of  John  Eccles,  her  English-born 
musician-laureate,  and  commanded  Handel  to 
write  the  official  Te  Deum.  The  alien  rose  to 
the  occasion  and  produced  his  grand  Utrecht  Te 
Deum  and  Jubilate  ;  whereupon  Queen  Anne  en- 
dowed him  with  ;^200  a  year  for  life.  But  this 
happy-go-lucky  serving  of  two  masters  and 
drawing  of  two  salaries  could  not  last  for  ever. 
The  Elector  George  grew  restive,  partly  because 


HANDEL  251 

his  Kapellmeister  was  taking  a  disrespectful  ad- 
vantage of  his  good-nature,  and  chiefly  because 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht  was  most  objectionable  to 
the  House  of  Hanover.  Handel  seems  to  have 
counted  on  having  plenty  of  time  for  repentance 
and  good  works  ;  but,  in  17 14,  Queen  Anne 
died  unexpectedly,  and,  seven  weeks  later, 
Handel's  wrathful  master  landed  at  Greenwich 
as  King  of  England. 

It  must  have  been  a  bitter  moment  for 
Handel.  Had  he  played  his  cards  better,  he 
would  have  accompanied  the  King  to  his  new 
dominions  as  one  of  the  brightest  ornaments 
of  his  train.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to 
give  the  Court  a  wide  berth  ;  and  although  he 
was  only  a  barber-surgeon's  son,  Handel  had 
already  come  to  regard  the  patronage  of  princes 
as  his  natural  right.  But  he  had  powerful 
friends.  His  home  was  at  Burlington  House, 
on  the  site  of  the  present  Royal  Academy,  where 
his  host,  the  Earl  of  Burlington,  played  Maecenas 
so  pleasantly  that  Handel  abode  with  him  for 
three  years. 

Seven  years  earlier,  during  his  first  visit  to 
Venice,  Handel  had  won  the  admiring  friendship 


252  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

of  the  Baron  Kielmansegge.  It  fell  out  that  the 
Baron  came  over  with  the  Elector  George  to 
England,  and  he  soon  began  to  plot  and  scheme 
with  Lord  Burlington  for  Handel's  restoration 
to  the  kingly  favour.  The  opportunity  came 
one  August  evening  when  the  Royal  Family 
were  returning  by  water  from  Limehouse  to 
Whitehall.  In  those  days  the  Thames  above 
London  Bridge  was  a  living  highway,  and  count- 
less boats  followed  the  procession  along  its 
torchlit  course.  At  last  the  King  became  con- 
scious of  sweet  sounds  proceeding  from  a  craft 
which  was  pressing  the  royal  barge  as  closely  as 
good  manners  allowed.  In  addition  to  a  full 
band  of  strings,  two  solo  violins,  a  flute,  a 
piccolo,  two  hautboys,  a  bassoon,  two  horns,  and 
two  trumpets  were  well  at  work.  After  playing 
a  ringing  fugue,  the  musicians  went  on  to  a 
brilliant  series  of  dance-movements,  including 
a  sailor's  hornpipe.  King  George  eagerly  in- 
quired who  the  author  of  this  charming  surprise 
might  be,  and,  on  hearing  from  the  lips  of  Baron 
Kielmansegge  that  it  was  his  penitent  old  Kapell- 
meister Handel,  he  forgave  him  on  the  spot. 
This    Water-Music   is    seldom    heard,   and    it    is 


HANDEL  253 

a  pity  that  no  enthusiasts  have  been  found  to 
perform  it  upon  the  River  Thames  on  the 
anniversary  of  its  first  hearing.  The  London 
County  Council  might  make  a  worse  use  of  one 
of  its  many  spare  steamboats  than  to  load  it  with 
one  of  the  Council  orchestras  on  a  warm  August 
night,  thus  allowing  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
people  to  hear  a  most  noble  music  in  the  con- 
ditions for  which  it  was  designed. 

To  save  everybody's  face  an  excuse  had  to  be 
found  for  bringing  back  Handel  to  the  Court. 
Geminiani,  one  of  the  many  Italian  musicians 
who  behaved  to  the  German  with  a  handsomeness 
rarely  shown  by  Italian  "professionals"  in  our 
own  day,  solved  the  problem  by  protesting  that  the 
aid  of  Llandel  at  the  harpsichord  was  essential 
to  the  effect  of  some  music  he  had  been  com- 
manded to  play.  As  soon  as  the  truant  found 
himself  in  the  Presence  he  expressed  sufficient 
contrition  ;  and  he  left  the  palace  the  richer  by 
an  additional  pension  of  ;^200  a  year.  A  little 
later,  when  the  King  returned  for  six  months  to 
Hanover,  he  took  Handel  with  him,  and  thus  the 
reconciliation  was  complete. 

Meanwhile  the  Duke  of  Chandos,  who    had 


254  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

piled  up  a  suspiciously  large  fortune  as  Pay- 
master of  the  Forces  under  Marlborough,  was 
finishing  his  palace  of  Cannons,  near  Edgeware, 
nine  miles  north-west  of  London.  Here  he 
lived  in  upstart  ostentation.  The  blocks  of 
marble  in  his  grand  staircase  were  over  twenty 
feet  long,  and  he  rode  to  church  on  Sundays  with 
a  retinue  of  a  hundred  guards.  But  he  was  a 
friend  of  art ;  and  it  was  as  his  master-musician 
that  Handel  wrote  much  good  music,  including 
his  first  oratorio  Esther^  and  his  ever-young 
Acis  and  Galatea^  with  its  familiar  songs  "  Love  in 
her  eyes  sits  playing,"  and  "  O  ruddier  than  the 
cherry  !  "  While  at  Cannons  he  also  published 
his  Suites  de  Pieces  pour  le  Clavecin^  containing  the 
immortal  movement  known  as  The  Harmonious 
Blacksmith.  Handel  himself  entitled  this  world- 
famous  piece  simply  Air  et  'Doubles  ;  but  there  is 
a  persistent  tradition  that  it  was  suggested  to 
him  by  the  blows  on  an  anvil  while  he  was  taking 
shelter  from  the  rain  in  a  roadside  smithy  near 
Cannons.  The  anvil  in  question  now  belongs  to 
Mr.  Maskelyne,  the  conjurer,  and  when  struck 
yields  the  notes  B  and  E,^  which  are  the  domi- 

^  According  to  the  pitch  used  in  Handel's  lime. 


HANDEL  255 

nant  and  tonic  of  the  key  in  which  the  piece  is 
written. 

In  1 719  the  South  Sea  Bubble  orbed  so  big 
and  bright  that  everybody  was  for  speculation. 
Among  the  many  new  joint-stock  companies  was 
"The  Royal  Academy  of  Music,"  with  a  capital 
of  ;^5o,ooo,  subscribed  by  royal  and  noble  per- 
sonages. The  aim  of  the  promoters  was  the 
revival  of  Opera  on  a  sound  commercial  and 
artistic  basis.  For  some  years  this  form  of  art 
had  languished  in  England.  MacSwiney,  the 
impresario  who  produced  Teseo^  the  fine  opera 
with  which  Handel  followed  up  Rinaldo,  had  run 
away  to  evade  imprisonment  for  debt.  But  the 
managers  of  the  new  Academy  went  confidently 
to  work.  They  appointed  as  musical  directors 
Handel,  Buononcini,  and  Ariosti — the  three 
composers  who  had  already  been  so  strangely 
associated  in  Berlin.  To  Handel  was  confided  a 
delicate  mission  to  the  opera-houses  of  Germany, 
with  the  aim  of  begging,  borrowing,  or  stealing 
the  pick  of  the  Italian  singers. 

At  Dilsseldorf,  at  Dresden,  and  elsewhere, 
Handel  collected  a  sufficient  number  of  the 
petted  creatures  whose  jealousies  and  greeds  were 


2S6  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

to  trouble  so  many  of  his  after  days.  Of  course, 
he  visited  Halle.  So  eager  was  the  desire  of 
Bach,  who  was  at  Anhalt-Kothen,  to  see  his 
brother  composer,  that  he  set  out  at  once  to  meet 
him.  But  Bach  only  reached  Halle  to  find  that 
Handel  had  started  for  England  a  few  hours 
before.  Thus  these  two  wonders  of  the  world 
never  met  in  the  flesh. 

The  new  Academy  got  into  full  swing  with 
Handel's  Radamisto.  In  their  fierce  determination 
to  hear  this  opera,  people  fought  at  the  doors  of 
the  theatre.  Many  ladies  were  carried  out  faint- 
ing, and  others  had  their  dresses  torn  to  ribbons. 
But  although  Radamisto  and  succeeding  works 
from  the  same  quill  caused  excitement,  Buonon- 
cini's  far  slighter  and  less  original  operas  drew  an 
even  larger  public.  At  last  the  expected  happened. 
Leaders  of  fashion  formed  two  camps,  with  the 
two  composers'  names  as  watchwords.  Broadly 
speaking,  the  Tories  declared  for  Handel  and  the 
Whigs  for  Buononcini.  It  was  in  ridicule  of  these 
factions  that  Byrom  scribbled  the  two  lines  which 
are  still  so  useful  to  shallow  critics  of  controversies 
too  deep  for  their  own  poor  understandings  : — 

Strange  all  this  ditference  should  be 
'Twixt  Tweedledum  and  Tweedledee. 


HANDEL  257 

The  singers  caused  poor  Handel  more  trouble 
still.  The  ugly  Francesca  Cuzzoni  was  so  little 
of  an  artist  that  she  refused  to  sing  the  beautiful 
"Falsa  Immagine  "  which  the  composer  had 
introduced  into  Ottone  expressly  on  her  account  ; 
and  it  was  only  after  Handel  had  roared  out  that 
she  was  "a  she-devil,"  and  that  he,  being 
"  Beelzebub,  the  Prince  of  Devils,"  intended  to 
throw  her  out  of  the  window,  that  she  gave  way. 
As  for  Senesino,  the  artificial  soprano,  when  a  bit 
of  machinery  fell  upon  the  stage  during  a  per- 
formance of  Ghdio  Ccsare^  he  broke  down  and 
began  to  cry,  although  he  had  just  been  singing 
the  song  "  Caesar  does  not  know  what  fear  is." 
Yet  each  of  these  creatures  received  ;,f  2000  for 
the  season,  and  at  Cuzzoni's  benefit  certain  seats 
were  sold  for  fifty  guineas  each. 

By  Act  of  Parliament  Handel  became  a  natural- 
ized Englishman  early  in  1726.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  his  first  opera  after  this  event  was  Scipione, 
which  begins  with  the  march  so  dear  to  many  a 
generation  of  English  soldiers.  For  iAlessandro^ 
Scipiones  successor,  the  Academy  engaged  the 
beautiful  singer  Faustina  as  well  as  Cuzzoni. 
In  writing  his  music,  Handel  did  his  utmost  to 

R 


258  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

prevent  a  breach  of  the  peace  between  the  two 
goddesses,  assigning  arias  of  equal  importance  to 
them  both  all  through  the  score.  But  the  baser 
sort  of  opera-goers  fomented  strife,  and  so  un- 
seemly became  the  behaviour  of  the  contending 
partisans  that  the  Academy's  better  patrons  began 
to  regard  the  Opera  as  less  of  a  pleasure  than 
a  pain. 

Thus  weakened,  the  Academy  was  finding  it 
increasingly  difficult  to  pay  the  inflated  salaries 
of  the  principals,  when  an  event  occurred  which 
hurried  them  to  utter  ruin.  Gay's  Beggars' 
Opera  drew  to  the  theatre  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields 
the  lewd  remnant  of  opera-goers  whom  the 
Handel-Buononcini  and  Cuzzoni-Faustina  brawls 
had  not  already  driven  away.  The  Beggars  Opera, 
however  high  may  have  been  its  didactic  aim, 
was  not  run  after  for  ils  satiric  gospel  but  for  its 
coarse  portrayal  of  low  life,  and  for  the  dozens 
of  catchy  tunes  which  Dr.  Pepusch  had  calmly 
lifted  not  only  from  the  treasures  of  old  English 
folk-song  and  from  the  works  of  dead  composers, 
such  as  Purcell,  but  also  from  Handel's  own 
operas,  especially  Rinaldo.  The  Beggars'  Opera 
ran   for   sixty-three  nights  ;   Miss  Fenton,  who 


HANDEL  259 

played  the  part  of  Polly  Peachum,  married  a 
duke  ;  and  altogether,  the  public  preoccupation 
was  so  complete  that  the  Royal  Academy  of 
Music  closed  its  doors,  and  the  Italians  took 
themselves  off  to  two  rival  theatres  in  Venice. 

Meanwhile  George  II  had  ascended  the  throne. 
For  his  coronation  Handel  wrote  the  lordly 
sequence  of  anthems  beginning  with  Zadok  the 
Priest.  Pensions  totalling  ;f  600  a  year  having 
been  confirmed  to  him,  Handel  boldly  took  the 
King's  Theatre  on  his  own  account,  and  set  out 
for  Italy  to  collect  a  new  troop  of  singers.  On 
the  way  home  he  paid  a  filial  visit  to  his  blind 
and  very  aged  mother,  and  once  more  failed  to 
keep  a  suggested  appointment  with  Bach. 

Artistically,  Handel's  operatic  venture  was 
magnificent ;  but  it  was  not  business.  When 
The  Beggars  Opera  and  its  imitations  grew  stale, 
people  did  not  return  in  sufficient  numbers  to 
their  first  love.  Most  of  the  singers  treated 
Hande^  shabbily.  For  instance,  the  contemptible 
Senesino,  who  had  once  been  publicly  caned  for 
his  insolence  to  the  gentle  English  singer,  Anas- 
tasia  Robinson,  deserted  to  Buononcini's  rival 
Opera  or  "  The  Opera  of  the  Nobility  "—a  ven- 


26o  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

ture  which  cost  its  backers  ;,f  12,000  and  ruined 
Handel  into  the  bargain.  As  for  the  singer 
Carestini,  this  "dog,"  as  Handel  called  him  to 
his  face,  actually  declined  to  sing  the  lovely 
"  Verdi  Prati "  in  Alcina^  although  the  event 
proved  that  it  was  a  song  of  songs  for  his 
voice. 

To  stave  oft  the  nearing  disaster  Handel  made 
experiments  in  the  direction  of  oratorios.  Esther 
and  Deborah  were  successfully  performed  ;  also 
Acis  and  Galatea^  which  was  advertised  as 
follows  : — 

There  will  be  no  action  on  the  Stage,  but  the 
Scene  will  represent,  in  a  picturesque  manner,  a 
rural  prospect,  with  rocks,  groves,  fountains  and 
grottos,  among  which  will  be  disposed  a  Chorus 
of  Nymphs  and  Shepherds,  the  habits  and  every 
other  decoration  suited  to  the  subject. 

These  essays  were  acceptable  to  his  patrons  ; 
but,  instead  of  following  them  up  on  a  large 
scale,  Handel  doggedly  produced  opera  after 
opera  until,  in  1737,  the  crash  came.  At  the 
age  of  fifty-two  he  found  himself  worse  than 
penniless  ;  for  he  was  forced  to  give  bills  (every 
penny  of  which  he  paid  in  the  long  run)  to  his 


HANDEL  261 

creditors.  The  husband  of  Signora  Strada,  his 
prima  donna^  refused  to  take  a  bill,  and  sought  to 
fling  Handel  into  prison.  Broken  in  health  he 
retired  to  the  sulphur  springs  of  Aix-la-Chapelle. 

But  the  Saxon  was  made  of  stern  stuff.  His 
indomitable  courage  did  even  more  than  the 
ancient  waters  to  renew  his  health  and  spirits. 
In  November  he  was  again  in  London,  wooing 
fresh  disappointments  at  the  new  Opera  of  his 
old  partner  Heidegger.  Had  he  accepted  the 
suggestion  of  his  enlightened  friend,  Aaron  Hill, 
the  begetter  of  Rinaldo^  he  would  have  written 
his  later  operas  to  English  libretti  as  he  did  his 
oratorios  ;  and  in  this  way  both  he  and  English 
Opera  might  have  made  their  fortunes.  He  per- 
sisted, however,  in  using  Italian  texts.  In  ^erse 
he  made  concessions  by  admitting  scenes  of  broad 
comedy.  But  it  was  all  in  vain.  In  spite  of  the 
King's  patronage  and  presence,  so  scanty  were 
the  audiences  that,  even  on  one  of  the  oratorio 
evenings.  Lord  Chesterfield  explained  his  early 
departure  from  the  theatre  by  saying  that  he  did 
not  like  disturbing  His  Majesty's  privacy. 

As  Signora  Strada's  husband  persisted  in  his 
plan  of  throwing  Handel  into  the  debtors'  prison, 


262  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  proud  Saxon  was  at  length  compelled  to  accept 
something  resembling  charity  in  the  shape  of  a 
"benefit"  concert.  The  public  swung  round  in 
his  favour  at  last,  and  the  benefit  brought  him 
at  least  ;^8oo.  When  the  entirely  unmusical 
Alexander  Pope,  who  had  been  snubbed  by 
Handel,  was  asked  why  he  had  praised  Handel 
in  his  Dunciad,  he  answered  handsomely,  "  that 
merit  in  every  branch  of  science  ought  to  be 
encouraged  ;  that  the  extreme  illiberality  with 
which  many  persons  had  joined  to  ruin  Handel 
called  forth  his  indignation  ;  and  that,  though 
nature  had  denied  his  being  gratified  by  Handel's 
uncommon  talents  in  the  musical  line,  yet  when 
his  powers  were  generally  acknowledged  he 
thought  it  incumbent  on  him  to  pay  a  tribute 
due  to  genius."  Seeing  that  the  world  has 
riveted  round  the  sickly  Pope's  poor  neck  a 
reputation  for  meanness  and  spite,  his  words 
stand  in  refreshing  contrast  with  the  ignorant 
and  clumsy  attack  which  the  comfortable  Horace 
Walpole  made  upon  Handel  when  he  was  down. 
A  further  proof  of  England's  slowly  awaken- 
ing esteem  for  Handel  was  the  unveiling  of  his 
statue  in  Vauxhall  Gardens.     This  statue  (illus- 


HANDEL  263 

trated  on  the  next  leaf  by  a  reproduction  of 
Bartolozzi's  print)  was  by  Roubiliac,  who  also 
carved  Handel's  monument  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  But  opera  languished  more  and  more. 
Heidegger  failed.  The  public  preferred  The 
Dragon  ofWantky  (a  parody  of  Handel's  Giustino), 
in  which  Handel's  own  cook  Waltz  played  the 
part  of  the  Dragon.  With  Deiaamia,  his  thirty- 
eighth  Italian  opera,  Handel  finally  retired  from 
a  field  where  he  had  planted  wheat  and  vines 
and  harvested  mainly  tares  and  thistles. 

Meanwhile  his  oratorios  had  been  growing  in 
number  and  in  fame.  Sau/^  the  earliest  of  Handel's 
first-rank  works  in  this  form,  and  Israel  in  Egypt^ 
which  some  people  consider  the  greatest,  were 
three  years  old  when  Deidamia  was  born.  But 
not  until  he  had  broken  with  Italian  opera  did 
Handel  set  about  the  work  which  is  not  only  by 
far  the  most  popular,  but  also  by  far  the  greatest 
oratorio  in  the  world.  He  began  the  Messiah  on 
a  day  of  happy  memories — 22  August,  1741,  the 
twenty-sixth  anniversary  of  his  reconciliation 
with  George  I  to  the  strains  of  the  M^ater-Music 
on  the  sparkling  Thames.  He  finished  it  on 
12  September. 


264  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Not  counting  a  scratch  rehearsal  at  Chester,^ 
where  adverse  winds  delayed  the  sailing  of  the 
packet,  this  most  English  oratorio  was  first  sung 
on  Irish  soil.  It  speaks  well  for  the  culture 
of  old  Dublin  that  the  Irish  were  quicker 
to  perceive  its  supreme  quality  than  were 
the  English.  Handel's  good  friend,  Charles 
Jennens,  who  so  skilfully  arranged  the  passages 
from  Holy  Scripture  which  constitute  the  Messiah 
libretto,  wrote  that  the  composer  had  "  made  a 
fine  entertainment  of  it,  though  not  near  so  good 
as  he  might  and  ought  to  have  done."  And 
Jennens  was  not  alone  in  his  dullness.  But  the 
Messiah  soon  made  its  way  to  the  height  from 
which  it  can  never  be  dethroned. 

The  utmost  musical  worth  of  the  Messiah  is 
generally  concealed  from  modern  ears  by  "  the 
additional  accompaniments  "  provided  by  Mozart 
and  others.  Mozart's  interference  was  justified 
by  the  fact  that  there  was  no  organ  in  the  hall 

^  Dr.  Burney,  then  a  fifteen-year-old  scholar  of  the  Chester  King's 
School,  saw  Handel  on  this  occasion.  He  relates  how  one  Janson,  a 
printer,  broke  down  so  badly  during  the  rehearsal  at  the  Golden  Falcon 
that  Handel  "let  loose  his  great  bear  upon  him,  and,  after  swearing  in  four 
or  five  Innguagcs,  cried  out  in  broken  English  :  'You  scoundrel  !  Did  not 
you  tell  me  that  you  could  sing  at  sight?'  'Yes,  sir,' said  the  printer, 
'and  so  I  can  ;  but  n -t  at  first  sight.'" 


The  SiATUE  of  Handel  ix  Vauxhall  Gardexs. 

After  Bartolozzi' s  Engraving. 


HANDEL  265 

at  Vienna  where  the  work  was  to  be  performed  ; 
but  the  embellishments  of  some  later  editors 
almost  drive  a  musician  to  imitate  the  gentle- 
man who  stayed  away  from  a  performance  "  with 
additional  accompaniments  "  on  the  ground  that 
he  had  *'  always  considered  the  Messiah  quite 
long  enough  already."  It  is  only  on  paper  that 
Handel's  orchestration  looks  bald.  The  common 
chords  for  the  strings  at  the  outset  of  "  Comfort 
ye"  achieve  their  end  as  fully  as  the  recondite 
harmonies  of  the  widely  subdivided  instruments 
in  the  garden  scene  of  Tristan  und  Isolde,  and  the 
first  entry  of  the  trumpets  in  "  Glory  to  God  " 
is  more  stirring  than  all  the  blare  of  brass  in 
the  Triumph  -  music  of  Aida.  As  for  the 
choruses,  they  are  equal  to  the  masterpieces  of 
Palestrina  in  the  melodiousness  of  their  part- 
writing  ;  and  they  have  an  advantage  over  Pales- 
trina in  that  their  melodiousness  is  of  a  kind  so 
grateful  to  the  universal  ear  that  even  untrained 
hearers  can  listen  rapt  to  one  choral  fugue  after 
another  without  suspecting  that  the  resounding 
onrush  of  crystal-clear  music  has  for  its  channel 
that  very  art-form  which  is  commonly  supposed 
to  be  the  driest  of  the  dry. 


266  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

But  the  Messiah  does  not  live  by  music  alone. 
Christian  faith  and  hope  and  charity  abide  in  its 
pages.  Burgh's  assertion  that  Handel  was  found 
sobbing  while  he  was  at  work  on  "  He  was 
despised "  may  not  be  accurate  ;  but  the  spirit 
in  which  Handel  accomplished  his  task  is  shown 
by  his  answer  to  Lord  Kinnoul's  compliments  on 
the  "  noble  entertainment."  He  said  :  "  My 
lord,  I  should  be  sorry  if  I  only  entertained 
them.  I  wish  to  make  them  better."  And  of 
the  mood  in  which  he  wrote  the  "  Hallelujah 
Chorus,"  he  said  :  "  1  did  think  I  did  see  all 
Heaven  before  me,  and  the  great  God  Himself." 
Nor  did  Handel  stop  short  at  mere  ecstasies  and 
pious  rejoinders.  Badly  as  he  needed  money, 
the  profits  (;^40o)  of  the  first  performance  in 
Dublin  were  divided  among  the  poor,  the  sick, 
and  the  unhappy  wretches  in  gaol  for  debt.  It 
was  also  the  Messiah  which  earned  for  the  Found- 
ling Hospital  £jooo  during  the  composer's  life- 
time, and  much  more  after  his  death.  And  it  is 
beyond  dispute  that,  like  the  great  churches  of 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  and  the 
great  altar-pieces  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth, 
Handel's    Messiah^   produced    amidst   the    bleak 


HANDEL  267 

deism  of  the  eighteenth,  has  declared  the  prime 
truths  of  Christianity  to  hundreds  of  thousands 
who  would  suffer  them  from  no  other  preacher. 
Within  seven  weeks  of  finishing  the  epic 
Messiah^  Handel  had  also  finished  the  dramatic 
Samson — or,  to  be  precise,  he  had  wrought  it 
as  far  as  the  sublime  dirge,  leaving  "  Let  the 
bright  seraphim  "  and  the  concluding  chorus  to 
be  added  a  year  later.  During  an  almost  in- 
credibly short  space  he  also  completed  the  huge 
Dettingen  Te  Deum,  and  the  oratorios  Joseph^  Bel- 
shazzar,  Semele^  and  Hercules^  as  well  as  music 
for  Vauxhall  Gardens,  some  of  which  he  cheer- 
fully admitted  to  be  rather  poor  stuff.  But  his 
industry  availed  him  little.  To  counteract  the 
revulsion  in  his  favour,  Handel's  few  but  active 
enemies  did  all  they  could  to  keep  the  public 
away  from  his  oratorios,  even  going  to  the 
length  of  giving  card-parties  and  routs  in  Lent 
on  Handel's  oratorio  evenings.  Their  vicious 
enmity  triumphed,  and  Handel  became  bankrupt 
a  second  time.^ 

^  Buononcini  himself  had  left  England  in  disgrace,  having  been  de- 
tected in  plagiarism.  The  fact  that  plagiarism  was  recognized  as  a  grave 
offence  has  not  been  sutficiently  pondered  by  tliose  who  accuse  Handel  of 
having  stolen  right  and  left  from  his  wide-awake  contemporaries. 


268  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

But  he  plodded  on.  Judas  Maccabteus^  Alex- 
ander BaluSj  Jos/may  Solomon^  Susanna^  Theodora^ 
and  Jephthah  completed  the  list  of  his  dramatic 
oratorios.  With  the  exception  of  Judas  these 
works  are  rarely  heard,  although  they  make  far 
livelier  hearing  than  three-fourths  of  the  more 
recent  compositions  which  choral  societies  prefer. 
Solomon  contains  a  movement  —  the  so  -  called 
"  Nightingale  Chorus  " — which  astonishes  musi- 
cian and  layman  alike.  As  in  the  Saul  "  Dead 
March,"  Handel  in  this  delicious  chorus  attains 
the  most  wonderful  of  ends  by  the  simplest  of 
means.  As  for  Theodora^  which  was  so  badly 
neglected  even  in  Handel's  lifetime  that  "  there 
was  room  enough  to  dance  "  when  it  was  per- 
formed, it  is  filled  full  with  dramatic  force  and 
musical  beauty.  Everybody  knows  Theodora's 
song,  "  Angels  ever  bright  and  fair  "  ;  but 
Theodora  contains  very  many  very  much  finer 
pages. 

Nowadays  Handel  is  known  to  the  general 
public  only  by  the  oratorios  composed  between 
1739  and  1742,  and  by  two  dozen  or  so  of  frag- 
ments chipped  out  from  his  whole  remaining  life's 
work.      Hence  his  vast  range  as  a  musician  is  not 


HANDEL  269 

grasped,  and  it  is  a  common  thing  to  hear  people  say- 
that  they  do  not  persist  in  exploring  their  Handel 
because  of  his  dreary  wastes  of  sameness.  It  is 
true  that  his  works  resemble  one  another  by 
reason  of  a  strongly  marked  style,  and,  unhappily, 
by  an  excess  of  mannerisms.  None  the  less, 
Handel's  achievement  must  be  reckoned  as  among 
the  most  extensive  and  most  richly  furnished  in 
musical  literature.  In  perusing  his  works  the 
reader  is  amazed  by  the  sum-total  of  Handel's 
first-rate  melodic  inventions  and  by  the  inexhaus- 
tible variety  of  his  accompanying  figures.  Even 
in  his  much-abused  arias  of  the  Scarlatti  type, 
with  a  contrasted  middle-section  and  an  indolent 
Da  Capo^  he  redeems  himself  time  after  time  by 
some  happy  stroke. 

Those  who  believe  that  depth  involves  ob- 
scurity, and  that  only  a  man  with  a  ponderous 
gait  can  have  a  valuable  load  upon  his  head,  find 
Handel  glib  and  empty.  But  his  swift  sureness 
is  one  of  the  traits  of  Handel's  genius.  As  huge 
as  a  Titan,  he  flashes  to  his  mark  like  bright 
Apollo.  It  follows  that  conductors  do  him  an  in- 
justice when  they  give  a  lumbering,  big-wigged 
Georgian  rendering  to  his  immortal  fugues,  and. 


270  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

above  all,  when  they  allow  certain  pet  contralto- 
singers  to  drag  along  his  noblest  phrases  as  if  they 
are  hauling  a  steam-roller  uphill. 

After  his  second  bankruptcy,  more  prosperous 
days  dawned  for  Handel.  He  was  able  to 
present  the  Foundling  Hospital  with  a  fine 
organ,  and  to  leave  ;^2o,ooo  behind  him  when 
he  died.  But  his  last  six  years  were  lived  in  the 
dark.  He  who  had  composed,  to  the  words  of 
blind  Milton,  that  sore  lament  over  his  blindness 
in  which  Samson  cries — 

Total  Eclipse  !     No  sun,  no  moon, 
All  dark  amidst  the  blaze  of  noon, 

himself  became  entirely  blind.  But  his  brave 
spirit  burned  on.  To  the  very  end  he  continued 
to  take  his  place  at  the  harpsichord.  Indeed,  it 
was  just  after  directing  a  performance  of  the 
Messiah  on  6  April,  1859,  ^hat  his  last  sickness 
struck  him.  For  a  week  he  lingered,  setting  his 
affairs  in  order  and  making  codicils  to  his  will. 
It  was  Holy  Week  ;  and  he  devoutly  expressed 
a  wish  that  he  might  die  on  Good  Friday,  "  in 
hopes  of  meeting  his  good  God,  his  sweet  Lord 
and  Saviour,  on  the  Day  of  His  Resurrection." 


HANDEL  271 

According  to  some,  his  prayer  was  granted:  but, 
according  to  others,  it  was  not  till  the  dawn  of 
Holy  Saturday  that  he  pased  away.  His  friend, 
James  Smyth,  wrote  : — 

He  took  leave  of  all  his  friends  on  Friday  morn- 
ing and  desired  to  see  nobody  but  the  doctor  and 
apothecary  and  myself.  At  seven  o'clock  in  the 
evening  he  took  leave  of  me  and  told  me  we  "  should 
meet  again."  As  soon  as  I  was  gone  he  told  his 
servant  not  to  let  me  come  to  him  any  more,  for  that 
he  had  now  done  with  the  world.  He  died,  as  he 
lived,  a  good  Christian,  with  a  true  sense  of  his  duty 
to  God  and  man  and  in  perfect  charity  with  all  the 
world. 

From  the  sorrow  at  his  death  there  sprang  at 
once  that  passionate  cult  of  Handel  which  pre- 
occupied the  musical  consciousness  of  England 
for  many  generations.  He  was  buried  in  Poets' 
Corner.  Although  the  funeral  was  supposed  to 
be  private,  "  a  vast  concourse  of  persons  of  all 
ranks  "  followed  him  to  the  grave.  Their  grief 
could  hardly  have  been  deeper  even  if  they  had 
known  that  they  were  burying  English  Music  as 
well  as  the  work-weary  frame  of  George  Frederick 
Handel. 


BACH 

AT  the  foot  of  the  castled  Wartburg,  where 
Tannhauser  scandalized  the  prudish  Minne- 
singers by  his  hymn  of  sacred  and  profane  love, 
and  where  Luther  hurled  his  inkpot  at  the  Devil, 
spreads  the  Thuringian  town  of  Eisenach.  And 
in  Eisenach's  Frauenplan,  over  the  broad  door- 
way of  a  tiled  house  with  dormer  windows, 
stands  a  tablet  marking  out  the  dwelling  as  the 
traditional  birthplace  of  John  Sebastian  Bach. 

During  a  great  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, the  widely  branching  family  called  Bach 
held  nearly  all  the  important  musical  posts 
throughout  Thuringia.  Arnstadt,  Eisenach,  and 
Erfurt  were  their  principal  seats  ;  and  so  com- 
plete was  their  monopoly  in  the  last-named  town 
that,  for  long  years  after  they  had  quitted  it,  the 
townsfolk  continued  to  speak  of  the  municipal 
musicians  as  "the  Bachs."  Indeed,  the  patient 
researches  of  German  biographers  have  brought 

272 


<   -5 


BACH  273 

to  light  the  names  and  musical  deeds  of  nearly 
sixty  Bachs,  all  belonging  to  the  same  clan.  Once 
a  year  there  was  a  reunion  at  which  the  clansmen 
loved  to  prove  their  skill  by  singing  several 
psalm-tunes  at  one  and  the  same  time,  along 
with  the  Ten  Commandments  and  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  Conscious  of  '^'ir  numbers  and  of 
their  influence,  the  Bachs  held  themselves  some- 
what aloof  from  their  colleagues,  and  they  do  not 
appear  to  have  supported  the  praiseworthy  Col- 
lege of  Instrumental  Musicians  of  Upper  and 
Lower  Saxony  in  its  efforts  to  raise  the  status 
of  the  profession. 

In  1645,  twins  were  born  to  a  Bach  of  Erfurt. 
The  twins  were  boys  ;  and  even  when  they  grew 
to  man's  estate  it  was  almost  impossible  to  tell 
the  one  from  the  other.  They  thought  alike, 
spoke  alike,  looked  alike,  fiddled  alike,  fell  ill 
alike  ;  and  when  one  died  the  other  promptly 
followed  his  example.  It  has  been  gravely  re- 
corded that  their  own  wives  could  not  always 
distinguish  them.  One  of  the  brothers,  John 
Christopher,  had  a  stormy  life.  Having  walked 
out  and  exchanged  rings  with  an  Arnstadt  damsel 
named  Anna  Cunigunda  Wiener,  he  was  eventu- 


274  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

ally  called  to  account  by  the  Consistory  for 
breach  of  promise,  and  was  so  ungallant  as  to 
affirm  that  he  "  hated  the  Wienerin  so  much 
that"  he  "could  not  bear  the  sight  of  her." 
Some  years  later  he  quarrelled  so  roundly  with 
town-musician  Graser  that  Count  Ludwig  Giin- 
ther,  his  employer,  could  only  settle  the  dispute 
by  dismissing  the  combatants  in  a  body.  John 
Christopher  was  reduced  to  piping  outside  the 
burghers'  houses  ;  and  although  he  was  at  length 
restored  to  favour,  it  is  not  surprising  that  he 
brought  up  one  of  his  sons  to  the  le  s  fitful 
profession  of  a  grocer. 

Of  the  other  twin,  John  Ambrose,  organist  of 
Eisenach,  little  is  known  beyond  the  one  fact 
which  is  of  supreme  account.  His  wife  Elizabeth 
bore  him  three  sons,  each  of  whom  received  the 
name  of  John,  followed  by  the  name  of  a  second 
saint.  The  youngest  of  the  three  was  born  on 
some  unrecorded  day  about  the  end  of  March, 
1685  ;  and  on  the  day  when  Handel  was  a 
month  old  this  new-born  Bach  was  baptized  as 
John  Sebastian. 

Like  the  young  Purcell's,  the  young  Bach's 
father  died  before  he  could  mould  his  son  ac- 


BACH  275 

cording  to  his  own  musical  likeness.  The 
guardianship  of  the  ten-year-old  Sebastian  was 
confided  to  his  eldest  brother,  John  Christopher,^ 
who  was  organist  at  Ohrdruf.  Thenceforward 
Sebastian,  although  it  was  presented  to  him  as  a 
kind  of  hereditary  task-work,  pursued  music 
no  less  ardently  than  the  young  Handel,  for 
whom  it  had  all  the  charms  of  forbidden  fruit. 
But  brother  Christopher  was  a  stern  tutor.  He 
had  made  a  collection,  in  MS.,  of  the  best  works 
of  Buxtehude  and  other  contemporary  masters. 
This  treasure  was  kept  in  a  bookcase  behind  a 
kind  of  wire  lattice,  and  Sebastian  was  denied 
permission  to  study  it  save  in  the  smallest  instal- 
ments. The  boy  contrived,  however,  to  work 
it  through  the  wire  and  to  push  it  back  again 
before  he  was  detected.  This  went  on  night 
by  night  for  six  months,  until  he  had  copied  out 
its  entire  contents  by  the  occasional  help  of  the 
moon.  But  John  Christopher  discovered  and 
harshly  confiscated  the  copy,  which  did  not  come 
back  into  the  scribe's  hands  until  he  was  a  man 
of  thirty-six. 

1  Not  to  be  confounded  with  the  hater  of  the  Wienerin.    At  least  nine 
John  Christopher  Bachs  are  known  to  the  learned. 


276  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

From  the  age  of  fifteen  young  Bach  had  to 
shift  for  himself.  About  Easter,  1700,  he  ob- 
tained a  modest  post  as  a  singer  and  violinist  in 
the  school  of  St.  Michael's  Convent  at  Liine- 
burg.  Bohm,  a  talented  Luneburg  organist 
with  a  softer  heart  than  John  Christopher's, 
smoothed  the  new-comer's  path.  But  a  greater 
than  Bohm  lived  only  twenty-five  miles  away. 
In  Hamburg  the  gallant  and  bibulous  but  musi- 
cally admirable  Reinken  played  the  organ  at 
St.  Catherine's. 

To  the  lad,  who  had  coaxed  MSS.  through 
wire  meshes  by  moonlight,  eight  leagues  of 
high-road  were  not  alarming.  Young  Sebastian 
trudged  oft  to  hear  Reinken  not  once,  but  often. 
And  on  the  way  home  from  one  of  these  pilgrim- 
ages a  miracle  befell.  Outside  an  inn  between 
Hamburg  and  LUneburg  the  footsore  pilgrim 
sat  down  to  rest.  From  the  kitchen  came  the 
alluring  odours  of  the  plentiful  dinner  about  to 
be  served.  But  he  had  spent  his  money  on  Art, 
and  the  odours  seemed  to  be  all  he  was  likely  to 
get.  Suddenly  some  one  opened  a  window  and 
pitched  out  the  heads  of  two  herrings.  In 
the  hope  that  something   might  remain   of  the 


BACH  277 

shoulders,  the  famished  Sebastian  pounced  upon 
them,  and  found  in  the  mouth  of  each  fish  a 
Danish  ducat.  Who  had  placed  them  there  he 
could  never  learn.  According  to  one  version  of 
the  story,  he  turned  right  round  and  sped  back 
to  Hamburg  to  hear  Reinken  once  more. 

At  the  neighbouring  Courts  of  Celle  and  of 
Weimar,  Bach  was  favoured  with  some  sort  of 
a  substitute  for  the  Grand  Tour  which  the 
lucky  Handel  accomplished  in  the  flesh.  At 
Celle,  French  compositions,  both  for  the  harpsi- 
chord and  the  string-band,  were  the  rage  ;  and 
at  Weimar,  where  Bach  joined  the  Duke's 
brother's  orchestra,  Italian  music  and  musicians 
were  in  high  favour.  His  works  abound  in  evi- 
dence that  he  did  not  move  through  these  circles 
in  vain. 

Close  to  Weimar  lay  the  town  of  Arnstadt, 
already  mentioned  as  one  of  the  Bach  strong- 
holds. In  1703,  by  some  mismangement,  a 
Borner  and  not  a  Bach  was  organist  of  the  New 
Church.  But  when  John  Sebastian  ran  over 
one  day  from  Weimar  to  try  the  new  organ,  the 
Consistory  made  haste  to  re-establish  the  tradi- 
tional order  of  things.    Borner  was  not  deprived 


2  78  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

of  his  salary  ;  but  he  was  dismissed  from  his 
high  post,  and  became  a  mere  deputy  to  a  strip- 
ling of  eighteen. 

But  this  questionable  action  brought  nobody 
any  very  good  luck.  After  little  more  than  two 
years'  service,  the  young  organist  could  no  longer 
control  his  desire  to  visit  the  revered  Buxtehude 
at  Liibeck.  This  was  about  sixteen  months  later 
than  the  pilgrimage  of  Handel  and  Mattheson 
to  the  same  shrine,  as  described  in  the  preceding 
chapter  ;  and  the  unenviable  Miss  Buxtehude 
still  hung  neglected  on  the  stalk.  From  Arnstadt 
to  Liibeck  is  two  hundred  good  miles,  and  it 
was  therefore  necessary  for  Bach  to  appoint  a 
deputy  and  to  obtain  a  month's  furlough.  He 
arrived  at  his  destination  in  time  for  the  musical 
feasts  which  Buxtehude  was  wont  to  spread  in 
his  Marienkirche  every  November  and  Decem- 
ber. But  when  his  month's  leave  had  expired, 
the  organist  of  Arnstadt  still  linscered.  Some 
suggest  that  he  was  pondering  the  arguments 
for  and  against  Miss  Buxtehude  ;  but  it  is  more 
likely  that  the  lady's  papa  was  the  sole  attraction. 
As  in  the  cases  of  the  wire  lattice  and  of  the 
surprising  herrings,  Bach  never  counted  the  cost 
when  his  art  beckoned  him  on. 


BACH  279 

When  the  truant  stole  back  to  Arnstadt  in 
February,  the  Consistory  was  more  than  ready 
for  him.  The  elders  promptly  served  him  with 
a  summons  to  appear  before  their  potencies, 
gravities,  and  reverences.  Not  content  with 
pounding  him  from  the  big  gun  of  his  truancy, 
they  bombarded  him  with  every  grievance  they 
could  rake  up.  They  complained  of  "  his  ex- 
traordinary variations  in  the  chorales  "  ;  of  his 
disdaining  rehearsals  ;  of  his  disagreeing  with  the 
scholars  ;  and  of  his  having  shown  disrespect  to 
the  Herr  Superintendent's  hint  that  he  "  played 
for  too  long  a  time"  by  "going  at  once  quite  to 
the  opposite  extreme  and  making  it  too  short." 
Worse  still,  they  had  to  complain  of  a  disci- 
pline so  lax  that  Rambach,  the  choir-prefect,  had 
"gone  to  a  wine-cellar  last  Sunday  during  the 
sermon."  And  they  wound  up  with  the  formid- 
able sentence  : — 

Furthermore,  ask  him  by  what  power  he  has 
latterly  allowed  the  strange  maiden  to  appear  and 
to  make  music  in  the  choir. 

Bach  eventually  answered  for  "  the  strange 
maiden,"  who  was  already  his  cousin,  by  making 
her  his   wife.     Respecting  certain  of  the   other 


28o  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

charges,  the  Consistory  gave  him  eight  days  to 
frame  his  reply  ;  but  as  he  kept  silence  all  the 
spring,  summer,  and  autumn,  they  tried  sarcasm, 
and  declared  that  if  "  the  organist  Bach  .  .  . 
feels  no  shame  in  drawing  the  salary,  he  must 
also  feel  no  shame  at  rehearsing  with  the 
scholars." 

Under  so  many  pin-pricks,  "  the  organist 
Bach  "  began  to  look  round  for  another  organ  ; 
and  soon  after  the  following  Easter  he  found 
one  at  Mahlhausen,  The  salary  was  a  little 
over  £S  per  annum  in  money,  supplemented  in 
kind  by  three  pounds  of  fish,  a  dozen  bushels 
of  corn,  two  cords  of  wood,  and  six  bundles  of 
brushwood.  But,  of  course,  the  official  salary 
of  an  organist  was  only  a  fraction  of  his  income, 
which  could  be  largely  increased  by  pupils'  fees 
and  by  the  honoraria  at  funerals  and  other  func- 
tions. The  new  organist  went  to  work  with  a 
will.  But  the  saints  at  Milhlhausen  were  no 
more  tolerable  than  the  saints  at  Arnstadt. 
There  was  a  militant  group  of  Pietists,  who  not 
only  dissented  from  some  of  the  Catholic  doctrines 
retained  by  Luther,  but  also  denounced  the  em- 
ployment   of    art    as    a    handmaid    to    religion. 


BACH  281 

Church-music,  as  practised  by  Buxtehude  and 
his  followers,  was  hateful  and  sinful  in  their 
eyes.  The  battle  became  so  hot  that  the  organist, 
in  disgust,  broke  his  professional  connexion  with 
the  Church  and  offered  his  talents  to  the  World. 

Bach  served  the  World  for  fifteen  years — nine 
years  under  Duke  Wilhelm  Ernst  at  Weimar 
and  six  years  under  Prince  Leopold  at  Kothen. 
At  Weimar  he  laid  the  foundations  of  his  grander 
musicianship.  Not  only  was  there  a  fairly  good 
organ  in  the  chapel,  but  also  a  small  orchestra. 
Further,  Bach  had  the  run  of  the  town  music, 
one  of  his  kinsmen  being  organist  of  the  town 
church.  The  Duke's  nephew  was  both  a  com- 
poser and  a  violinist,  while  the  Duke  himself  was 
a  serious  and  cultivated  patron  of  art. 

Leave  of  absence  was  more  easily  obtained 
from  Bach's  Dukes  and  Princes  than  from  his 
Town-Councils  and  Consistories.  Although  little 
is  known  of  his  life  at  Weimar,  records  exist  of 
his  visits  to  organ  after  organ  in  German  towns. 
At  Cassel  a  princely  hearer  rewarded  his  playing 
with  a  present  of  a  costly  ring,  drawn  there  and 
then  from  his  own  finger.  At  Leipsic  Bach  met 
the  Cantor  Kuhnau,  little  knowing  that  he  him- 


282  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

self  was  fated  to  spend  the  last  twenty-seven 
years  of  his  life  as  Kuhnau's  successor.  At 
Halle,  on  the  death  of  Handel's  old  music- 
master  Zachau,  he  competed  for  the  post  of 
organist  in  the  Liebfrauenkirche  ;  but  although 
the  fine  organ  was  large  beyond  his  dreams,  the 
salary  turned  out  to  be  too  small.  At  Dresden 
he  challenged  a  visitor  from  Paris,  Jean  Louis 
Marchand,  to  a  trial  of  musical  strength  ;  but 
although  Marchand  took  up  the  gauntlet,  his 
courage  failed  him  at  the  last  moment,  and  he 
slipped  away  from  Dresden  by  a  fast  coach  at 
dawn,  leaving  his  challenger,  the  jury  of  musi- 
cians, and  a  distinguished  audience  to  wait  for 
him  in  vain. 

Immediately  after  the  renowned  Marchand's 
flight,  an  event  which  immensely  promoted  his 
triumphant  opponent's  fame.  Prince  Leopold,  of 
Anhalt-Kothen,  invited  Bach  into  his  service. 
This  was  in  17 17.  The  Prince  took  to  his  new 
Kapellmeister  warmly.  In  171 8,  for  instance, 
he  and  his  brother  and  sister  stood  as  sponsors 
at  the  baptism  of  Bach's  seventh  child,  who  was 
named  Leopold  after  his  princely  godfather. 

Whenever  the  Prince  went  to  Carlsbad,  Bach 


BACH  283 

and  his  small  orchestra  went  with  him.  But 
from  one  of  these  pleasant  journeys  there  was 
a  sad  home-coming.  His  wife,  whom  he  had 
left  in  good  health,  died,  and  was  buried  on  the 
eve  of  his  return  ;  and  the  news  only  reached 
his  ears  as  he  was  hastening  to  meet  her  faithful 
greeti.j^s.  Perhaps  it  was  this  loss  which  made 
him  seek  a  change  from  Kothen. 

At  Hamburg,  where  Reinken,  in  spite  of  his 
ninety-seven  years,  was  still  playing  at  St.  Cathe- 
rine's, a  post  became  vacant  at  St.  James's.  The 
St.  James's  organ,  with  its  four  manuals,  pedal, 
and  threescore  stops,  so  tempted  Bach  that  he  set 
down  in  black  and  white  his  willingness  to  accept 
the  post  of  organist.  But  a  musical  nonentity, 
a  certain  Heitmann,  bought  the  place  over  the 
heads  of  all  the  other  candidates  for  four  thou- 
sand marks.  In  taking  his  bribe  the  committee 
impudently  resolved  : — 

That  the  sale  of  a  post  of  organist  should  not 
become  a  custom,  since  it  pertained  to  the  service 
of  God  ;  but  if,  after  election,  a  person  should  of 
his  own  free  will  show  his  gratitude  by  money  pay- 
ment the  Church  should  not  refuse  it. 

Happily  there  was  at  least  one  honest  Lutheran 


284  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

in  Leipsic.  One  Neumeister,  at  the  close  of  his 
Christmas  sermon  on  the  Gloria  of  the  angelic 
hosts  near  Bethlehem,  boldly  said  that  should  one 
of  those  same  angels  offer  himself  as  organist  at 
St.  James's  Church,  "  if  he  had  no  money  there 
would  be  nothing  for  him  save  to  fly  away  again," 

But  the  shabbiness  of  the  ciders  went  a  long 
way.  Not  only  was  the  best  man  cheated  of 
his  big  organ,  but  the  public  reading  of  Bach's 
letter  to  the  congregation  absolved  Prince  Leo- 
pold from  fastidious  loyalty  to  the  Kapellmeister 
who  had  sought  to  leave  him  in  the  lurch.  At 
first  all  went  on  as  before.  Resettling  at  Kothen, 
Bach  married  again  about  a  year  and  a  half  after 
his  first  wife's  death.  His  second  bride,  Anna 
Magdalena  Wulken,  was  the  youngest  daughter 
of  the  Court  trumpeter.  She  had  a  fine  voice, 
and  soon  learned  enough  of  music  to  write  out 
MS.  copies,  some  of  which  still  exist. 

But  Bach's  was  not  the  only  marriage  at  the 
Court  of  Kothen.  The  Prince  followed  the 
Kapellmeister's  example  ;  and  Bach  himself  has 
thus  described  the  sequel  : — 

I  had  there  [at  Kothen]  a  gracious,  music-loving 
and  discriminating  Prince  with  whom  I  hoped  to 


BACH  28s 

end  my  days,  but  it  happened  that  my  master 
married  a  Barenburg  princess,  whose  tastes  were 
not  in  accordance  with  her  lord's.  She  delighted 
in  gaieties  and  worldly  pleasures,  and  gradually 
weaned  my  master  from  the  loving  interest  he  had 
always  shown  towards  our  glorious  art,  and  so  God 
arranged  that  the  post  of  Cantor  at  St.  Thomas's 
School  should  fall  vacant.  At  first  I  did  not  think 
it  becoming  to  relinquish  the  dignified  office  of 
Kapellmeister  for  that  of  a  modest  Cantor.  For 
this  reason,  therefore,  I  took  three  months  to  con- 
sider the  future,  and  was  at  last  induced  to  accept, 
as  my  sons  were  inclined  to  be  studious,  and  I  was 
desirous  of  affording  them  an  opportunity  of  gratify- 
ing their  bent  by  entering  them  in  the  school ;  and 
thus,  in  the  name  of  the  Most  High,  I  ventured 
and  came  to  Leipsic. 

When  Bach  took  up  his  duties  in  1722,  the 
Thomasschule  was  nearly  five  centuries  old.  Its 
endowments  comprised  fifty-four  scholarships  for 
the  encouragement  of  church-music.  The  School 
was  bound  to  supply  music  every  Sunday  in  four 
churches.  The  churches  of  St.  Thomas  and 
St.  Nicholas  were  also  entitled  alternately  to  a 
cantata  or  motet,  accompanied  by  the  town 
orchestra  playing  with  the  organ.  On  four  ap- 
pointed days  the  Thomas-scholars  were  further 


286  GREAT   MUSICIANS 

bound  to  sing  in  street  processions.  Altogether 
the  School  might  have  been  a  dignified  as  well 
as  a  useful  institution.  But  under  an  aged 
Rector,  who  fought  against  reforms,  it  had 
become  a  scandal.  The  masters  quarrelled,  the 
boys  did  pretty  much  as  they  pleased,  illness 
was  frequent,  general  studies  were  neglected,  the 
citizens  grew  disgusted,  and  the  standard  of 
musical  efficiency  sank  lower  and  lower.  Instead 
of  doing  their  work,  the  scholars  spent  a  great 
deal  of  their  time  on  the  doorsteps  of  the 
citizens  begging  for  money,  a  fixed  minimum  of 
their  takings  being  reserved  for  the  precious 
Rector,  Corrector,  Cantor,  and  chief  master  of 
Latin.  Some  of  these  boys  went  begging  bare- 
foot, and  were  of  notoriously  bad  character. 

Bach's  official  remuneration  was  supposed  to 
be  about  £12  a  year,  with  free  residence  and 
sundry  allowances  of  wool,  corn,  and  wine  ;  but 
his  total  income  as  Cantor  mounted  up  to  about 
;^ioo,  which  would  be  equal  in  purchasing  power 
to  about  £600  at  the  present  day.  Financially  he 
had  little  to  complain  of;  and  as  he  was  allowed 
to  add  his  honorary  titles  as  Kapellmeister  of 
Kothen  and  Kapellmeister  of  Weissenfels  to  the 


John  Sebastian  Bach. 

A/'cr  E.  Gottlieb  Hansiitajin. 


BACH  287 

not  unimportant  title  of  Thomasschule  Cantor, 
he  could  hold  his  own  in  Leipsic's  social  life. 
But  Bach  was  not  happy  at  the  School.  Dis- 
putes were  constant.  Only  two  years  after  his 
acceptance  of  the  cantorship,  he  was  compelled 
to  memoralize  the  King  of  Saxony  on  sorry 
points  of  privileges  infringed  and  perquisites 
diverted.  The  Council  was  perpetually  shrewing 
him.  At  one  time  strife  raged  round  the  oppos- 
ing claims  of  the  Cantor  of  the  Thomasschule 
and  the  Subdean  of  St.  Nicholas  to  select  the 
hymns.  At  another  time  trouble  arose  because 
the  Council  had  appointed  the  hours  from  noon 
to  two  p.m.  for  the  boys'  singing-practice  on  three 
days  of  the  week — an  arrangement  so  contemptu- 
ous to  the  sanctity  of  Bach's  German  dinner-hour 
that  he  began  to  leave  the  singing-practice  to 
look  after  itself.  More  than  once  the  Council 
sought  to  suppress  the  Cantor's  salary  ;  and 
when  this  was  found  impracticable  he  was 
punished  by  the  confiscation  of  sundry  extra 
fees. 

Worst  of  all,  the  Council  persisted  in  treating 
their  very  great  man  as  a  very  little  one.  Even 
when  his  fame  was  well  established  throughout 


288  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Germany,  they  still  regarded  him  as  their  hired 
hack.  To  underline  their  disrespect  they  studi- 
ously ignored  his  title  of  Kapellmeister  and 
would  only  describe  him  as  Cantor— a  dis- 
courtesy which  would  still  deeply  offend  a  Ger- 
man, even  after  the  recent  preachings  of  Socialist 
levellers  all  over  the  Fatherland.  Nor  did  the 
Council  merely  deny  Bach  his  due  styles  and 
titles.  They  refused  him  the  men  and  boys  and 
money  for  the  proper  discharge  of  his  task. 
His  immortal  Passion  music  was  first  performed 
on  a  scale  which  the  parish  church  of  the  tiniest 
town  in  England  could  easily  surpass.  Some- 
times he  commanded  only  two  voices  for  each 
part.  On  one  occasion  the  Council,  out  of  pure 
fussiness,  forbade  a  performance  of  Passion- 
music  outright  ;  and  it  was  only  by  setting  the 
Consistory  and  the  Council  to  quarrel  between 
themselves  that  Bach  could  make  headway. 

Once,  when  his  cup  of  disgust  was  brimming 
over,  the  ruffled  Cantor  vainly  sought  a  post 
under  the  Tsar  of  Russia.  But  the  situation 
improved  a  little  in  1730,  when  the  old  Rector  of 
the  Thomasschule  died,  and  Bach's  friend  Gesner 
took  his  place.     Gesner  was  a  scholar.     He  re- 


BACH  289 

placed  the  boys'  vernacular  devotions  by  Latin 
prayers,  and  magnified  Greek  in  their  daily 
studies.  Better  still,  he  was  a  diplomatist,  who 
soon  adjusted  the  feuds  and  jealousies  among 
the  masters  which  had  annihilated  the  discipline 
of  the  school.  Best  of  all,  he  knew  good  music 
from  bad.     It  was  Gesner  who  wrote  : — 

In  other  respects  I  am  a  great  admirer  of  an- 
tiquity ;  but  I  maintain  that  this  Bach  of  mine  .  .  . 
unites  in  himself  many  Orpheuses  and  twenty 
Arions. 

Poor  Gesner,  however,  was  an  invalid  who 
had  to  be  carried  to  the  school  in  a  chair.  After 
four  strenuous  and  fruitful  years  of  rule  he 
died,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  young  and  erudite 
but  overbearing  Rector  named  Ernesti.  Had 
Ernesti  been  simply  indifferent  to  music.  Bach 
and  he  might  have  found  a  way  of  living  and 
working  together  ;  but  the  new  Rector  hated 
music,  and  did  not  conceal  his  contempt  of  those 
who  practised  it.  Both  men  were  quick-tempered 
— notably  Bach,  who  was  known  in  Leipsic  as 
the  man  who  tore  off  his  wig  and  flung  it  at  the 
head  of  GOrner,  the  Thomas-Church  organist, 
with  the  words,  "You  ought  to  be  a  shoemaker!" 

T 


290  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

Moreover,  Ernesti  was  a  young  man,  while  Bach 
was  the  father  of  nineteen  children.  The  war 
between  the  two  waxed  so  fierce  that  in  one 
matter  Ernesti  threatened  to  thrash  and  degrade 
any  lad  who  obeyed  Bach's  orders.  When  the 
Council  failed  to  intervene,  Back  once  more  took 
his  case  to  the  King  at  Dresden.  But  although 
Bach  at  the  end  of  this  pugnacious  year  (1736) 
received  the  long-coveted  title  of  Composer  to 
the  Saxon  Court,  the  Rector's  onslaughts  against 
the  Cantor's  peace  did  not  cease.  One  day, 
when  a  prefect  had  punished  some  of  the  younger 
scholars  under  Bach's  instructions,  the  Rector 
ordained  the  public  flogging  of  the  prefect  him- 
self; and  it  was  only  by  leaving  the  school  alto- 
gether that  the  prefect  saved  his  dignity  and  his 
skin.  At  another  time  Ernesti  declared  that 
boys  who  obeyed  Bach  would  suff'er  for  it  by 
the  confiscation  of  their  pocket-money.  Indeed, 
Ernesti  once  went  so  far  as  to  accuse  Bach  of 
having  succumbed  to  bribery  and  corruption. 

But  in  spite  of  the  pitiable  bickerings  which 
soured  his  official  hours  as  Cantor,  Bach  seems 
to  have  been  happy  as  a  man  and  a  composer. 
In    the  letter  to  his   friend   Erdmann,  whereby 


BACH  291 

he  sought  entrance  to  the  Tsar's  service,  he 
wrote  : — 

My  eldest  daughter  is  as  yet  unmarried.  The 
children  by  my  second  marriage  are  still  young, 
the  eldest  being  only  six.  But  they  are  all  born 
musicians  ;  and  I  can  assure  you  that  I  am  quite 
able  to  give  a  vocal  or  instrumental  concert  at  any 
time  solely  with  the  aid  of  members  of  my  family. 
Not  only  is  my  wite  a  good  soprano,  but  my  eldest 
daughter  does  not  do  badly. 

Again,  if  his  hours  of  creative  activity  were 
mainly  hours  of  bliss,  Bach  at  Leipsic  must 
have  had  more  than  the  average  share  of  happi- 
ness ;  for  he  wrote  there  the  great  Matthew 
Passion,  the  still  greater  Mass  in  B  Minor, 
the  Christmas  0?-atorio,  the  second  half  of  the 
Wohltemperirte  K/avier,  a  Magnificat,  and  a  vast 
collection  of  less  familiar  music,  including  nearly 
two  hundred  cantatas. 

It  is  said  that  Bach  composed  five  "  Passions  " 
altogether,  but  only  two  of  them  indisputably 
survive.  The  genesis  of  these  deathless  composi- 
tions is  worth  describing.  In  the  second  chapter 
of  the  present  volume  some  account  has  been 
given  ot  the  manner  of  singing  the  Passion  in 


292  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

the  Roman  Church.  Martin  Luther  retained  a 
good  deal  of  this  ancient  ceremonial  ;  but  his 
directions  gradually  ceased  to  be  followed,  until 
the  solemn  chanting  of  the  Passion  in  the  sanc- 
tuary gave  place  to  a  mere  reading  in  the  nave. 
Later  on  an  attempt  was  made  to  enlist  the 
whole  congregation  as  chanters  by  abandoning 
the  sacred  words  of  the  Evangelists  in  favour  of 
a  metrical  hymn.  As,  however,  this  hymn  was 
nearly  three  hundred  lines  long  and  was  sung, 
without  the  organ,  to  a  most  monotonous  psalm- 
tune,  it  conduced  more  to  unedifying  boredom 
than  to  holy  Lenten  sorrow. 

When  Bach  was  a  boy  of  twelve,  the  Elector 
of  Saxony  gave  up  Lutheranism  and  returned 
to  the  Roman  obedience.  Thus,  in  Bach's  time 
as  in  our  own,  Dresden  could  show  a  Catholic 
Court  in  the  midst  of  a  Protestant  population. 
Frederick  Augustus,  the  converted  Elector, 
established  his  chapel  on  a  princely  basis  ;  and 
no  doubt  the  Holy  Week  music,  enriched  as 
was  the  ancient  chant  by  polyphonic  additions, 
would  make  a  deep  impression  on  those  who 
heard  it.  Before  long  a  desire  to  improve  their 
own    Passion-music     showed    itself   among    the 


BACH  293 

more  earnest  Lutherans  at  various  points  in  the 
valley  of  the  Elbe.  For  example,  Handel, 
Keiser,  and  Mattheson  each  wrote  a  Passion  at 
Hamburg  ;  but  these  works  were  disfigured  by 
operatic  music  and,  in  some  cases,  by  operatic 
words.  The  time  was  ripe  for  a  masterpiece, 
and  it  was  natural  that  it  should  come  from 
Bach,  an  almost  exclusively  ecclesiastical  com- 
poser who,  although  surrounded  by  opera- 
houses,  had  never  written  a  note  for  the  Opera 
in  his  life. 

Doctor  Solomon  Deyling,  Professor  of  Divinity 
at  Leipsic,  had  the  honour  of  setting  Bach  to 
work.  He  suggested  that  the  Cantor  should 
compose  a  Passion  for  solo  voices,  chorus,  and 
orchestra.  Bach's  best  and  clearest  singer  was 
to  declaim  the  narrative  of  the  Evangelist,  and 
other  solo  singers  and  a  chorus  were  to  deliver 
the  speeches  and  exclamations.  To  these  epic  and 
dramatic  elements  meditative  additions  were  to  be 
made,  or,  to  use  Deyling's  own  word,  there  were 
to  be  "pauses"  in  the  epic  and  the  drama,  during 
which  arias  would  define  the  pious  thoughts  aris- 
ing from  the  narrative  or  from  the  dramatic 
situation  ;    and   as   soon   as   pious   thought  had 


294  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

aroused  penitent  love,  the  congregation  were  to 
be  allowed  to  express  their  feeling  in  verses  of 
familiar  hymns  sung  to  familiar  tunes. 

St.  Philip  Neri  the  inventor  of  oratorios  him- 
self could  hardly  have  devised  a  more  edifying 
procedure,  and  as  all  the  world  knows,  Bach 
rose  magnificently  to  Deyling's  idea.  His  full- 
ness of  piety  is  as  evident  throughout  the  scores 
as  his  musical  genius.  In  its  present  form  the 
John  Passion  appears  to  be  a  work  of  the  Kothen 
period,  drastically  revised  on  Deyling's  princi- 
ples. The  Matthew  Passion  was  first  performed 
in  1729,  and  is  on  a  grander  scale.  For  instance, 
in  the  latter  work  the  words  of  our  Lord  are 
distinguished  by  an  important  accompaniment 
of  strings  from  the  other  speeches,  which  are 
supported  only  by  a  bass  filled  out  on  a  keyed 
instrument.  Bach's  successors  at  the  Thomas 
Church  continued  to  perform  it  for  fifty  years 
after  his  death  and  then  dropped  it  completely. 
With  all  the  musical  faults  of  Englishmen,  it 
cannot  be  said  that  they  have  ever  dropped  the 
Messiah. 

Compared  with  Handel's  work,  the  Matthew 
Passion  is  musically  much  more  varied  and  elabo- 


BACH  295 

rate.  Indeed,  there  are  more  harmonic  and  con- 
trapuntal devices  in  the  Matthew  Passion  than  in 
all  Handel's  oratorios  added  together.  This  is 
largely  due  to  Bach's  habit  of  treating  not  only 
each  group  of  voices,  but  also  each  instrument 
as  a  separate  part,  whereas  Handel  rarely  wrote 
independent  instrumental  parts,  and  preferred 
either  to  make  the  instruments  double  the  vocal 
phrases  or  to  set  them  playing  mere  figures  of 
accompaniment.  Yet  the  complexity  of  Bach's 
means,  as  noted  on  paper,  rarely  detracted  from 
the  dignity  and  tenderness  of  his  ends  in  actual 
performance.  It  is  to  the  lasting  glory  of  Men- 
delssohn that  he  rescued  the  noble  Matthew 
Passion  from  neglect,  and  that  he  revived  it  with 
reverent  care  on  the  hundredth  anniversary  of 
its  first  performance. 

If  Bach  ever  surpassed  the  Matthew  Passion, 
it  was  only  in  his  Mass  in  B  Minor:  But  this 
astonishing  work  is  self-disabled  from  wide 
popularity.  As  it  is  a  Latin  Mass  throughout, 
it  was  never  suitable  for  the  use  of  Lutherans, 
in  whose  mass-books  Luther  retained  very  few 
Latin  items.  Nor  is  it  much  more  practicable 
for  Catholics,  as  the  inordinate  length  of  its  move- 


296  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

ments  would  leave  the  celebrant  and  the  sacred 
ministers  sitting  or  standing  idle  to  the  grave 
peril  of  their  fervent  recollection.  Hence  it  has 
come  to  pass  that  a  work  which  was  designed  to 
accompany  the  most  sacred  mysteries  of  Catholic 
worship  is  only  to  be  heard  oratorio-fashion  in 
secular  concert-halls.  Bach  wrote  it  as  a  courtier, 
and  dedicated  it  to  the  Elector  of  Saxony  in  the 
following  letter,^  dated  27  July,  1733  : — 

Illustrious  Elector  :  Gracious  Master, — To 
Your  Kingly  Highness  I  offer  in  deepest  devotion 
this  small  fruit  of  the  knowledge  to  which  I  have 
attained  in  music,  with  the  most  humble  prayer  that 
you  will  look  upon  it,  not  according  to  the  poor  com- 
position, but  with  your  world-renowned  clemency, 
and  therefore  will  take  me  under  your  powerful 
protection. 

I  have  for  some  years  had  the  direction  of  the 
music  in  the  two  chief  churches  of  Leipsic,  but 
have  suffered  several  disagreeable  things  and  my 
income  has  been  reduced  though  I  myself  am  blame- 
less ;  but  these  troubles  would  easily  be  overcome 
if  your  Highness  would  grant  me  the  favour  of  a 
decree,  after  conference  with  your  Court  orchestra. 

The  gracious  granting  of  my  humble  prayer  would 

1  In  Naumann's  Hhtary  of  Music  (facing  page  772,  VoL  II,  Eng.  Trans.) 
there  is  an  excellent  facsimile  of  the  original  letter. 


BACH  297 

bind  me  to  honour  you  everlastingly  :  and  I  offer 
myself  to  do  obediently  anything  your  Royal  High- 
ness may  require  of  me  in  the  way  of  composing 
church  or  orchestra  music,  and  to  give  unwearied 
industry  and  to  dedicate  my  whole  strength  to  your 
service.  With  ever-increasing  faithfulness,  I  remain 
your  Royal  Highness'  most  obedient  servant, 

John  Sebastian  Bach. 

The  Illustrious  Elector  took  three  years  in 
coming  to  the  point  :  but  his  most  obedient 
servant's  request  was  granted  at  last. 

Next  to  the  two  "  Passions,"  Bach's  best- 
known  work  is  his  Wohltemperirte  Klavier,  or 
"Well-tempered  Clavier."  In  Germany  the  name 
"  Clavier  "  was  given  to  the  harpsichord,  clavi- 
chord, spinet,  and  indeed  all  keyboard  instru- 
ments. To  explain  the  word  "  well-tempered  " 
is  less  easy,  as  it  involves  abstruse  points  of 
acoustical  science.  But  any  reader  who  will  take 
the  trouble  to  make  a  simple  experiment  on  a 
keyboard  instrument  which  can  sustain  sounds 
(such  as  the  harmonium)  may  gain  some  insight 
into  the  matter.  He  will  find  that  the  only  per- 
fect concords  are  the  octaves,  which  yield  pure 
and    smooth    tone.      Let    him    hold    down    any 


298  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

other  pair  of  notes  (even  pairs  which  are,  in 
theory,  perfectly  concordant)  and  his  ear  will 
detect  more  or  less  of  pulse  or  "  beat "  or  wavi- 
ness  In  the  resultant  sound.  This  pulse  is  the 
result  of  tuning  the  instrument  on  the  principle 
of  "  equal  temperament  "  for  which  Bach  and 
Rameau  contended.  Unlike  a  string  or  a  human 
voice,  the  clavier  is  not  a  perfect  musical  instru- 
ment, and  one  cannot  have  all  the  twenty-four 
major  and  minor  keys  exactly  in  tune  at  the  same 
time.  Hence  a  "  well-tempered "  clavier,  in 
Bach's  sense,  is  tuned  on  a  give-and-take  prin- 
ciple by  which  all  the  keys  bear  some  share  of 
the  instrument's  imperfection.^ 

Students  of  Handel  and  of  the  fine  old  clavier 
masters,  such  as  Couperin,  will  have  noticed  that 
their  compositions  are  never  in  remote  keys. 
The  writer  remembers  an  unscientific  enthusiast 
remarking  that  "  good  old  Handel  never  worries 
you  with  more  than  four  flats  or  sharps  ;  and 
whenever  he  lets  you  catch  sight  of  an  accidental 
G  flat  you  know  something  fine  is  coming."     Of 

^  This  imperfection  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  G  sharp  and  A  flat  are 
identical  on  a  pianoforte,  although  they  are  two  distinct  sounds  when  truth- 
fully produced  from  a  fiddle-string  or  from  the  vocal  chords  of  a  singer. 


BACH  299 

course,  the  explanation  is  that  Handel's  harpsi- 
chord was  tempered  on  the  "  unequal "  principle 
by  which  the  keys  nearest  to  C  boasted  pure  in- 
tonation at  the  expense  of  keys  which  were  more 
remote.  That  unequal  temperament  has  many 
claims  on  our  respect  is  apparent  to  any  one  who 
has  had  a  chance  of  hearing  Handel's  or  Couperin's 
harpsichord  pieces  on  equally  and  unequally 
tempered  instruments  in  turn.  Again,  the  vicious 
habit  of  learning  singing  at  a  modern  "  well- 
tempered  "  pianoforte  accounts  for  a  great  deal 
of  the  bad  intonation  with  which  modern  singers 
offend  just  ears.  But  while  the  unequal  temper- 
ing at  its  best  was  very  good  indeed,  its  worst 
was  so  frightful  that  organ-tuners  have  long  been 
accustomed  to  describe  its  raucousness  by  the 
expressive  name  of  "  The  Wolf." 

Bach's  ear  was  fine  enough  to  perceive  the 
beauty  of  the  unequal  tuning  in  the  simpler 
keys  ;  but  he  maintained  that  this  beauty  was 
bought  at  too  high  a  price.  A  composer  who  is 
restricted  to  half  a  dozen  keys  is  like  a  hunts- 
man who  is  obliged  to  keep  to  the  lanes  and 
roads.  In  composition  one  should  be  free  to 
range  through  the  whole  cycle  of  keys.    Accord- 


300  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

ingly  Bach  decided  that  it  was  better  to  have 
twenty-four  tiny  wolf-cubs  whining  softly  be- 
side twenty-four  milestones  than  to  have  a 
full-grown  wolf  baying  hideously  through  the 
furthest  and  deepest  thickets.  The  "  Well- 
tempered  Clavier "  consists  of  preludes  and 
fugues  for  all  the  twenty-four  major  and  minor 
keys.  Half  the  book,  as  we  know  it,  was 
written  at  K5then  and  the  other  half  at  Leipsic. 
The  preludes  are  not  always  inwardly  connected 
with  the  fugues,  and  the  whole  work,  in 
spite  of  its  dry  title,  is  really  a  collection  of 
clavier-pieces  brimming  with  human  as  well  as 
musical  interest. 

That  there  arc  still  people  who  shudder  at 
the  threat  of  a  Bach's  fugue  is  almost  entirely 
the  fault  of  those  organists  who  play  every  piece 
as  if  they  are  "  practising "  it  like  an  exercise. 
When  Bach  is  performed  in  an  inhuman  spirit 
and  in  what  has  been  acutely  called  "  the 
three-cornered  style,"  one  can  understand  the 
Philistine  definition  of  a  fugue  as  a  musical 
performance  in  which  the  subject  keeps  rush- 
ing in  and  the  audience  keeps  rushing  out. 
The   truth    is   that  Bach's  greatest  organ-fugues 


BACH  301 

arc  more  charged  with  high  thought  and  noble 
feeling  than  most  of  the  music  cast  in  more 
romantic  forms.  Having  very  much  to  say, 
Bach  said  it  in  fugues,  just  as  his  predecessors 
had  uttered  deep  oracles  of  life  and  death  in 
mere  suites  of  dances  for  worthless  Courts. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  days,  Bach  was  cheered 
by  the  patronage  of  Frederick  the  Great.  Bach's 
son  Emanuel  was  Frederick's  Kapellmeister  ;  and 
in  the  spring  of  1747,  the  Cantor  of  Lcipsic 
was  commanded  to  appear  at  Potsdam.  To 
quote  his  son's  account  : — 

When  Frederick  II  had  just  prepared  his  flute,  in 
the  presence  of  the  whole  orchestra,  for  the  evening's 
concert,  the  list  of  strangers  who  had  arrived  was 
brought  to  him.  Holding  his  flute  in  his  hand  .  .  . 
he  turned  round  with  excitement  to  the  assembled 
musicians,  and,  laying  down  his  flute,  exclaimed, 
"  Gentlemen,  old  Bach  is  come  !  " 

Without  having  time  to  change  his  clothes, 
old  Bach  was  summoned  to  the  Presence.  The 
concert  was  given  up.  Frederick  dragged  his 
visitor  from  room  to  room,  making  him  try  all 
his  seven  pianos.  At  Bach's  request  the  King 
gave  him  a  fugue-subject  (resembling  the  subject 


302  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

of  '*  And  with  His  stripes  "  in  Handel's  Messiah)^ 
and  while  the  composer  extemporized  on  this 
and  another  theme,  the  King  repeatedly  cried, 
"  There  is  only  one  Bach  !  " 

But  not  even  the  favour  of  the  great  Frederick 
could  move  Leipsic  to  value  its  Cantor.  Two 
years  later,  when  the  old  man  was  weak  and 
blind,  the  Council  chose  Gottlob  Harrer  to 
succeed  him  "  as  soon  as  Chapel-Master  and 
Cantor  Herr  Sebastian  Bach  should  die."  In  no 
hurry  to  oblige  his  graceless  employers,  Bach 
lingered  for  a  year.  When  he  passed  away,  on 
28  July,  1750,  the  Council's  grief  was  expressed 
in  the  words,  "  Herr  Bach  was  certainly  a  great 
musician  :  but  we  want  a  school-master,  not  a 
chapel-master."  His  widow,  the  faithful  Anna 
Magdalena,  ended  her  days  in  an  almshouse  and 
was  buried  as  a  pauper. 

Since  Mendelssohn,  following  in  the  footsteps 
of  Mozart,  revived  Bach's  music  the  praising  of 
Bach  has  been  so  fervently  taken  in  hand  that 
some  of  his  eulogists  have  set  him  higher  than 
Palestrina  and  Handel.  This  is  a  pity.  Others 
have  repeated  in  cold  print  the  unhappily  framed 
statement  that  "  Music  owes  as  much  to  Bach  as 


BACH  303 

Religion  does  to  its  Founder."  This  is  not  true. 
The  oblivion  into  which  most  of  Bach's  music 
fell  after  his  death  was  so  complete  that  Burney 
dismissed  it  in  a  single  paragraph  of  his  four- 
volume  History.  It  follows  that  the  splendid 
movements  of  which  Haydn  and  Gluck  were 
the  prominent  pioneers  and  of  which  Beethoven 
and  Wagner  were  the  most  glorious  results 
proceeded  independently  of  Bach. 

Bach  has  an  even  stronger  claim  to  be  the 
Musicians'  Musician  than  has  Edmund  Spenser 
to  be  the  Poet's  Poet.  When  Schumann  said  of 
Bach,  '*!  confess  my  sins  daily  to  that  Mighty  One 
and  seek  to  purge  myself  through  him,"  he  was 
speaking  words  with  which  every  musician  can 
sympathize.  But  the  greatest  artists  are  those 
who  are  greatest  for  all  humanity,  not  those 
who  are  most  interesting  to  their  professional 
brethren.  To  breathe  even  the  lightest  word 
against  the  splendid  genius  of  Bach  is  a  distaste- 
ful task  ;  but  it  is  surely  well  to  protest  against 
exaggeration  before  it  provokes  reaction.  The 
writer  of  these  pages  may  be  wrong ;  but,  having 
listened  to  the  Matthew  Passion  both  immediately 
before  and  immediately  after  the   Holy  Week 


304  GREAT  MUSICIANS 

music  of  the  sixteenth-century  masters,  he  does 
not  find  in  Bach,  grand  as  Bach  is,  the  fullest 
utterance  of  the  deepest  and  highest  things  in 
earth  and  in  heaven.  There  is  truth  in  the 
words  of  Bach's  German  contemporary  whom 
Burney  quotes  as  saying  that  if  Bach  had  had 
Handel's  clearness,  simplicity,  and  feeling  he 
would  have  been  a  greater  man.  Nevertheless, 
it  must  be  added  that  he  had  the  qualities  of 
these  defects  ;  and  if  Frederick  the  Great  came 
to  life  again  he  could  still  exclaim,  "There  is 
only  one  Bach  !  " 


THE    END 


WILLIAM   BRENDON   AND   SON,    LTD. 
PRINTERS,    PLYMOUTH 


